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STATB  NORMAL  SCHOOL 

i06AKGltt.ESl-.-OAU 


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STATS  NORMALSCHOOU 

THE 

C,0]S[STITUTIONAL 

AND 

POLITICAL  HISTORY 

OF  THE  /  ^  ^/  -^ 

UNITED  STATES. 


BY 

Dr.  H.  von  HOLST, 

PBOFESSOB  AT  THE  UMIVKHSITY  OF  FREIBUBO. 


TRAM3LATED  FBOM  THE  QEBHAN 

By  JOHN  J.  LALOK,  A.  M. 
1828-1846. 

JACKSON'S  ADMINISTRATION  — ANNEXATION  OF  TEXA& 


yOL.  IL 


CHICAGO: 
CALLAGHAN  AND  COMPANY. 

1888. 


Entered  according  to  Act  cf  Congress  In  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  seTenty-ntce 

BT  CALLAGHAN  &  CO., 

In  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D  0. 


STATE  JOURNAL  PRINTI  -iG   COMPANY, 

FSIMTERS  AND  STERiLcrrTPEBS,  , 

KJJHSOM,  irjk 


V.  z^ 
TRMSLATOR'S  NOTE. 


The  title  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Grerman  edition  of  this 
work  is  Verfassung  und  Democratie  der  Vereinigten  Staa- 
ten  von  Amerihi.  Believing  that  the  literal  translation  of 
that  title  would  not  convey  to  the  American  reader  as  cor- 
rect an  idea  of  the  contents  of  the  distinguished  author's 
book  as:  "The  Constitutional  and  Political  History  of  the 
United  States,"  the  translators  of  the  first  volume  agreed  to 
call  the  work  in  English  by  the  latter  name.  This  was  done 
without  any  previous  consultation  with  the  author  himsell 
Professor  v.  Hoist,  however,  has  given  this  second  volume 
the  title — which  is  to  be  preserved  in  those  that  are  yet  to 
come  —  Verfassungsgeschichte  der  Vereinigten  Staaten  seii 
der  Administration  Jacksons  —  or  "  The  Constitutional  His- 
tory of  the  United  States  from  the  Administration  of  Jackson." 
It  is  due  to  Professor  v.  Hoist  and  the  public  to  say  that 
the  author  himself  is  of  opinion  that  the  title  chosen  by  the 
translators  for  the  first  volume  raises  a  claim  which  that  vol- 
ume does  not  entirely  support.  This  second  volume  fulfills 
the  promise  of  the  translators'  title,  and  hence  the  reader 
will  find  the  scope  of  this  second  volume  somewhat  different 
from  that  of  the  first. 

Tliose  acquainted  with  the  Grerman  edition  will  notice 
that  the  Einleitung  (Introduction)  to  the  second  volume  is 


iv  tkanslatob's  note. 

not  here  translated.    The  reason  of  its  omission  is  that  it 
was  intended  bj  the  author  only  for  the  German  edition. 

I  desire  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  the  kindly 
criticism  of  Professor  "William  F.  Allen,  of  the  University  of 
"Wisconsin,  General  James  M.  Lynch,  of  Milwaukee,  and 
Alfred  B.  Mason,  counsellor  at  law  of  Chicago,  my  collabo- 
rator in  the  translation  of  the  first  volume,  whose  withdrawal 
from  the  continuation  of  the  task  has  not  diminished  his 
interest  in  a  work,  the  great  merits  of  which  he  was  one 

of  the  first  to  recognize. 

JOHN  J.  LALOR 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
The  Reign  of  Andrew  Jackson 1  ^ 

Jackson  Inaugurates  Government  by  Politicians. — Crawford's  De- 
cline.—  King  Caucus. —  Jackson's  Career  and  Character. —  The  Elec- 
tion of  Adams  over  Jackson  in  1824. —  Kremer's  Charge  against 
Clay.— The  Electoral  College  and  the  Direct  Vote  Theory. —  Jack- 
son's Election  a  "People's"  Victory. —  The  Spoils  System. — Jack- 
son's Inauguration. —  Disregard  of  the  Great  Questions  of  the  Day. — 
Professional  Politicians  and  Corruption  in  Politics. —  The  Albany 
Regency. —  Van  Buren  its  Soul.  —  Adams'.  View  of  the  Civil  Serv- 
ice.—  Marcy  Proclaims  the  Doctrine:  "To  the  Victor  Belong  the 
Spoils."  —  Jackson's  Cabinet. — The  Eaton  Scandal. —  Jackson  the 
Embodiment  of  Typical  American  Traits. —  His  Demoniacal  Will. — 
The  Bank  Question. —  Charges  against  Mason  as  President  of  the 
Portsmouth  Branch  Bank.  —  The  Administration  Thwarted  and  En- 
raged.—  Jackson's  Charges  against  the  Bank.— National  Conven- 
tions.—  The  National  Republicans  Nominate  Clay  for  President, 
1831.—  Money  Power  of  the  Bank  in  Election  of  1832. —  Democratic 
Party  Discipline. —  Veto  of  the  Bank  Bill. — Discussion  of  the  Veto 
Power. —  The  Veto  Message  Appeals  to  the  Masses. —  Cabinet 
Changes. —  Jackson's  Bank. —  Agency  Plan. —  The  Deposits. — Taney 
Becomes  Secretary  of  the  Trea&ury. —  His  View  of  the  Removal  of 
the  Deposits. —  Cabinet  Officers,  Their  Duties  and  Accountability. — 
Congress  and  the  Deposits. —  Presidential  Usurpation.  —  Resolution 
Censuring  Jackson  Expunged  from  Senate  Records. —  Jackson's  In- 
terpretation of  the  Constitution.  —  The  Rights  of  the  President. — 
Jackson's  Political  Heirs. — Trading  Politicians  and  a  Republic. — 
Jackson's  Career  Promotes  Politician  Rule. 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  Abolitionists  and  the  Slavery  Question  in  Congress.    80 
The  Early  Anti-Slavery  Societies  not  Abolition  Societies  in  a  Polit- 
ical Sense. —  Missouri  Question  Awakens  Popular  Knowledge  and 
Fear  of  Slavocracy's  Rule. — The  First  Abolitionists.— Lundy  and 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Garrison. —  Moral  and  Religious  Awakening. —  Formation  of  Anti- 
Slavery  Societies.— Negro  Uprisings.—  Nat.  Turner.—  The  Negro  and 
the  Gospel.— Emancipation  Efforts  in  Virginia.— John  Marshall's 
View  of  Slavery. —  Abolitionists  Accused  of  Inciting  Negroes  to  Re- 
volt.—Laws  against  Slave  Education. —  Prudence  Crandall's  Negro 
School  in  Connecticut. —  Abolitionists  Mobbed  in  New  York. — The 
Garrison  Mob  in  Boston. —  Character  of  Abolitionism. —  Municipal 
Character  of  Slavery. —  Abolition  Appeals  to  Congress. —  South  Offers 
Rewards  for  Garrison  and  Tappan. —  South  Demands  Suppression  of 
Free  Speech  on  Slavery. —  Slavery  Doomed. —  Fugitive  Slaves. —  Abo- 
litionism an  Infamous  Crime  in  the  Southern  States. —  Rifling  of  the 
Mails. —  Postmaster-General  Kendall  Proscribes  Abolition  Mail  Mat- 
ter.— Jackson's  Message  Indorses  Him.  —  The  Bible  Not  Allowed  to 
be  Given  to  Slaves.  —  Calhoun's  Bill  against  Abolition  Mail  Matter 
Exalts  State  Above  United  States  Laws. —  Calhoun  a  Lover  of  the 
Union. —  His  View  of  the  Necessitj'  of  Slavery. —  Admission  of  Mich- 
igan and  Arkansas. —  Missouri  Enlarged  and  the  Compromise  Vio- 
lated.—  The  Sacs  and  Foxes. —  Magnanimous  Northern  Assistance 
of  the  Slavocrats  in  Congress. —  The  Shame  of  the  North. 

CHAPTER  IIL 

Van  Buren's  Administra.tion.  L  His  Political  Career.  The 
Crisis  op  1837  and  the  Independent  Treasury 147 

Change  of  Administrations  in  America. —  Van  Buren,  the  First 
Politician  President. —  Characters  of  Jackson  and  Van  Buren. —  The 
Latter's  Career. —  His  Contract  for  the  Presidency. —  Rivalry  with 
Calhoun. — Jackson's  War  on  H.  L.  White. —  The  First  National  Po- 
litical Convention. —  Van  Buren's  Pledge  to  the  South. —  Van  Buren 
Popularly  Held  Responsible  for  Jackson's  Economic  Policy. — English 
Capital  and  Speculation. —  Internal  Improvements. —  Increase  of 
Small  Banks. —  Changes  in  the  Monetary  Standards. —  Public  Land 
Sales. — Southern  Drafts  on  Foreign  Capital.  —  Plantations  and  Slaves 
Held  as  Security. —  King  Cotton. —  The  Surplus  from  Public  Land 
Sales. —  Jackson's  Specie  Circular  Hastens  the  Crisis  of  1837. —  The 
Crisis  Inaugurated  by  the  Bank  of  England. —  Suffering  in  the 
South. —  Causes  of  the  Crash. —  Van  Buren's  Creditable  Conduct 
Through  the  Crisis.- His  Plan  of  an  Independent  Treasury. —  Cal- 
houn's Position  on  the  Question  and  His  Political  Relations.- The 
Whigs'  Attack  on  the  Independent  Trea'^ury  Plan. —  Clay  Declares 
the  Plan  Impossible.— New  York  Turns  against  Van  Buren. —  Dan- 
ger of  National  Insolvency. —  Extra  Session   of  Congress,  1837. — 


CONTENTS.  VU 

Recovery  from  the  Crash. —  Re-ascendency  of  the  Democrats. —  De- 
pression of  1839. —  R  M.  T.  Hunter  Elected  Speaker. —  Suspension  of 
Specie  Payments. —  Balance  of  Parties  in  a  Republic. —  Separation 
of  the  Banks  and  Finances  of  the  Country. — Van  Buren's  Victory. — 
Democratic  Defeat  in  1840  Insured. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Van  Buren's  Administration.    II.  The  Slavery  Question...  219 

Growing  Differences  on  the  Slavery  Question  Greet  Van  Buren. — 
Lovejoy's  Murder. —  The  Question  of  Political  Activity  in  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Societies. —  Garrison's  Character  and  Principles. —  Divisions 
Among  the  Abolitionists. —  The  Woman  Question. —  The  Churches 
and  the  Clergy. —  Slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  Governed  by 
the  Laws  of  Maryland  and  Virginia. —  Petitions  Submitted  by  Adams 
for  Abolition  in  the  District. —  Calhoun's  Attitude:  Slavery  Must  be 
Maintained  or  Disunion  Must  Ensue. —  He  Realizes  the  Moral  Aspect 
of  the  Question. —  The  Gag  Resolutions  in  the  Light  of  American  Po- 
litical Principles. —  Adams'  Defense  of  the  Right  of  Petition. —  Princi- 
ples on  which  the  Right  is  Based.  —  The  Attack  on  Adams. —  His  Ex- 
culpation.—  Calhoun's  Doctrines  a  Growth  exactly  Apace  with  the 
Times. —  He  Declares  Slavery  a  Positive  Good. —  He  Introduces  Six 
Resolutions  on  Slavery,  Demonsti'ating  its  Rightful  Status,  Uphold- 
ing States  Rights,  Demanding  Federal  Protection  of  Slavery  and  the 
Denial  of  the  Right  of  Petition  as  Respects  Slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  or  Elsewhere. —  Gag  Laws:  Pinckney's.  Putton's,  Ather- 
ton's,  Johnson's. —  New  York  Abolition  Convention  at  Arcade. —  The 
Creek  Treaty  of  1790.—  Slaves  Among  the  Seminoles.—  Unwarranted 
Indemnity  to  Georgia  Slaveholders. —  Removal  of  Seminoles  Resolved 
on.— Payne's  Landing  Treaty.— The  United  States  Array  Hunts 
Slaves.—  Outrage  on  Osceola  and  his  Revenge.  —The  Second  Seminole 
War.—  Its  Useless  Expense  of  Life  and  Money.—  Military  Investiga- 
tion.—  Osceola  Captured  by  Treachery. —  Jesup's  Infamous  Tactics. — 
United  States  Funds  Used  in  Rewards  for  Recaptured  Slaves.—  Ma- 
comb's Mission  to  Conclude  the  War. —  Slavery  not  to  be  Wholly 
Blamed  for  the  War.— Van  Buren's  Relation  to  it.— Cases  of  the 
"  Enterprise"  and  the  "Encomium." — England's  Action  in  them  a 
Serious  Blow  to  Slavocracy.— International  Law  and  Slavery. — 
L'Amistad  Case.— Spain's  Claim.  — Van  Buren's  Wish  to  Accede  to 
it.— Adams'  Heroic  Defense  of  the  Negroes,  and  their  Release. — 
Van  Buren's  Retirement. 


VIU  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  V. 


Van  Buren's  Presidency.    IIL  The  Presidential  Election 

OF  1840 330 

Slavery  Question  in  the  Campaign. —  National  Debt  Contracted 
Under  Van  Buien. —  New  Jersey  Contested  Congressional  EUction. — 
Decadence  of  Congress. — Electioneering  by  Federal  Officers. — Cus- 
tom-House  and  Post-Office. —  Defalcation  of  Swartwout. —  Wood- 
bury's Lenient  Dealing  with  Him. —  Growth  of  Political  Knowledge 
and  Desire  for  "Change." — Whig  Gains.  —  Clay's  Political  Fortunes 
and  His  Desire  to  Please  All  Sides. — The  Triangular  Correspond- 
ence.—  Whig  National  Convention,  1839. —  Harrison  and  Tyler  Nomi- 
nated.—  Clay's  Vexation. —  Harrison  as  a  Man  and  Soldier. —  His 
Political  Past. —  His  Pledge  to  Antagonize  the  Power  of  the  Presi- 
dent.—  Has  the  True  Democratic  Spirit. —  His  Confused  Position  on 
the  Bank  and  Tariff. —  Tyler  Nominated  by  Virtue  of  his  Tears. — 
Tyler's  Adherence  to  the  States-Rights  Doctrine. —  His  Antagonism 
to  Harrison  on  the  Bank,  Tariff,  and  Internal  Improvements. —  His 
Position  on  Nullification. —  Tyler  and  Clay. — "Down  with  the  Tar- 
quins;  Away  with  the  Spoilers." — The  Picturesque  Character  of 
the  Campaign. —  Doggerel. — Van  Burens  Renomination. —  His  Un- 
enthusing  Character. —  Workingman's  Party. —  Loco  Focos. — Tam- 
many Hall. —  Necessity  of  the  Element  of  Progress  in  a  Political 
Party. —  Harrison's  Election. — Cry  of  Fraud. —  The  Liberty  Party, 
its  Significance. 

CHAPTER  VL 

Tyler's  Administration 406 

Harrison's  Sincerity  as  to  Civil  Service  Reform. — "Change "in 
Office. —  Office-Seekers  said  to  Have  Caused  Harrison's  Death. —  Re- 
serve between  Clay  and  Harrison. —  Eflfect  of  Harrison's  Death. — 
Tyler's  Politics. —  He  Expects  Factional  Attacks  on  His  Administra- 
tion.—  Special  Session  of  Congress. —  The  Independent  Treasury. — 
The  Bank  Controversy. —  Clay's  Report. —  Tyler's  Policy  Governed  by 
Second  Term  Ambition. —  Clay's  Desire  for  the  Whig  Nomination  in 
1844.—  Tyler's  First  Bank  Veto.—  His  Kitchen  Cabinet.—  The  Second 
Bill  and  Veto. —  Ewing,  Bell,  Badger  and  Crittenden  Resign  from 
the  Cabinet. — Webster  Retains  His  Position  on  Account  of  English 
Relations. — The  Whig  Manifesto. —  Democratic  Gains  over  the 
Whigs. —  National  Deficit. —  Sale  of  Public  Lands. — Repudiation  Fol- 
lowing the  Crisis  of  1837. —  Land  Distribution  Bill. —  Webster  Bank- 
ruptcy Bill.  — To  Relieve  National  Distress. —  Tyler  Urges  Part 
Abandonment  of  the  Compromise  Tariff. — Veto  of  the  Tariff  Bill. — 


CONTENTS.  IX 

Clay  Proposes  an  Amendment  Curtailing  the  Veto  Power.  —  The 
Veto  and  Revenue  Measures. —  Tyler  and  the  "Whigs. — The  Bill 
Passed. —  Botts'  Impeachment  Resolutions.—  The  Exchequer  Bill. — 
Increase  of  Abolitionism.  — Adams'  War  in  Congress  against  Slavery. 

—  The  Haverhill  Petition.— Adams'  "Trial"  and  the  Marshall  Reso- 
lutions Censuring  Him. —  Right  of  Petition  Vindicated. —  The 
"Creole"  Case. —  Censure  of  Giddings. —  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  Abolitionism.  —  The  Quintuple  Treaty  on  the  Slave 
Trade.— Cass'  Pamphlet. —  Severity  of  the  Slave  Code.— Treaty  of 
Washington,  1842,  on  Slave  Trade.— The  Bowie  Knife  and  Revolver 
in  Congress  for  Enforcement  of  Slavocratic  Views. —  The  Democracy 
of  the  North  the  Natural  Ally  of  the  South. —  Immigration  and  Poli- 
tics.—  The  Catholic  Church.  —  Congressional  Representation,  Law  of 
1842. —  Douglas'  Advent.  —  Tyler  Removes  Whigs. —  His  Inaugural. 

—  His  Political  Bankruptcy.  — The  Political  Situation  in  1844;  Clay, 
Tyler,  Van  Buren,  Jolinson,  Buchanan,  Calhoun. —  The  New  York 
Irish. —  Native  Americans.  — The  "Regular  Ticket." — The  Tariff  in 
1844. —  Polk's  Letter  to  Kane. —  The  Bank  Issue  in  the  Campaign.^ 
Slavery  and  the  Personality  of  the  Candidates  the  Main  Questions. — 
Fugitive  Slaves. —  New  York  Refuses  to  Surrender  Negro  Seamen  to 
Virginia. —  Massachusetts  Proposes  a  Constitutional  Amendment 
Excluding  Slave  Representation. —  Repeal  of  the  Gag  Law. —  North 
and  South  in  Politics  and  in  the  Churches. —  Progress  of  Disunion- 
ism. —  The  Princeton  Explosion.  —  Calhoun  Becomes  Secretary  of 
State  to  Effect  Annexation  of  Texas. 

CHAPTER  VIL 
Texas 648 

Ind(?finitenessof  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty.—  Controversy  and 
Treaty  with  Spain  About  the  Floridas.— The  Sabine  Line. —  Impor- 
tance of  Texas  to  the  Slavocracy. —  Long's  Scheme  of  a  Texan  Repub- 
lic.—  Poinsett's  Mission. —  Mexico  Emancipates  the  Texas  Slaves, 
1829. —  Early  Plots  to  Annex  Texas. —  Land  Companies. —  Sam.  Hous- 
ton.—  Jackson's  Relations  with  Houston  and  the  Annexation  Plot. — 
Austin's  Mission. —  The  Revolution  in  Texas;  Expulsion  of  Mexican 
Troops. —  Declaration  of  Texan  Independence. —  Fort  Alamo  and 
Goliad.— Capture  of  Santa  Anna. —  United  States  Violation  of  Neu- 
trality.—  Gorostiza's  Complaints. —  General  Gaines  Crosses  the  Texan 
Border. —  Texan  Land  Speculation. —  United  States  Troops  Join  the 
Army  of  Texas. —  Gorostiza  Leaves  Washington. —  Recognition  of 
Texas  Voted  by  Congress. —  President  Houston  Empowered  to  Raise 
an  Army  of  Forty  Thousand. —  Ellis,  Charge,  Submits  United  States 


X  CONTENTS. 

Claims  and  Threats  against  Mexico. —  Jackson  Declares  War  Justifi- 
able.—  Further  Charges  Trumped  Up. —  Insulting  Peace  Offers  Made 
to  Mexico. —  Van  Buren  Becomes  President. —  Texas  Proposes  An- 
nexation.—  Van  Buren's  Policy. —  Mexico  Proposes  to  Arbitrate 
Differences. —  Anti-annexation  Petitions. —  Annexation  in  Congress. 

—  Arbitration  Does  not  Silence  the  Complaints. —  Texan  Bank- 
ruptcy.—  General  Hamilton's  Offer  to  Buy  Texan  Independence. — 
Houston  Threatens  Invasion  of  Mexico. —  Wise  Babbles  the  Pro- 
gramme, under  Tyler,  of  a  War  of  Conquest  and  Plunder  against 
Mexico. —  Settlers  in  California. —  Commodore  Jones  Patrols  the  Pa- 
cific.—  Rumored  Purchase  of  California  by  England. —  Capitulation 
of  Monterey. —  American  Flag  in  Mohterey.  —  Webster  Refuses  Satis 
faction  to  Mexico. —  The  North  Warns  against  Annexation. —  Chaotic 
State  of  Texas. —  Europe  and  Texas. —  Calhoun  Declares  Annex- 
ation Necessary. —  Election  of  1844  Turns  Upon  the  Question 
of  Annexation. —  Webster  Resigns  from  the  Cabinet. —  Legare 
Succeeds  Him,  then  Upshur. —  Upshur  Declares  against  European 
Interference  with  Slavery  in  America. —  He  Proposes  Annexation 
to  the  Texan  Agent — Texas  Grows  Reserved. —  The  Conven- 
tion of  January,  1843.—  The  Treaty  of  November,  1843,  Blocked 
by  the  Senate. —  Mexico  Inclined  to  War  in  Case  of  Annex- 
ation.—  United  States  Navy  "Protects"  Texas  against  Renewal  of 
Hostilities  by  Mexico. —  The  "Princeton"  Disaster. —  Calhoun,  Sec- 
retary of  State.— The  Annexation  Treaty  Signed;  Delay  in  Ratifica- 
tion.—  England's  Position  Shown  by  Aberdeen's  Letter. —  Calhoun 
Draws  from  it  the  Necessity  of  Annexation. —  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
and  Slavery. —  The  Packenham  Correspondence. —  Texas  in  the  Elec- 
tion of  1844.—  Clay  on  Annexation. —  His  Candidacy. —  Van  Buren. 

—  Nomination  of  Polk.—  Senate  Criticises  the  Annexation  Treaty — 
Mexico  Threatens  to  Regard  Annexation  as  Cause  for  War. —  Treaty 
Rejected. —  Further  Complaints  against- Mexico. —  Shannon  Made 
Minister,  Mexico  Threateils  to  Renew  Hostilities  against  Texas. — 
Callioun  Refuses  to  Allow  This. —  Annexation  again  Urged  by 
Tyler,  and  by  Southern  Fire-Eaters  in  Convention.— "Texas  or  Dis- 
union," "Texas  or  the  Abolition  of  the  Tariff."— Party  ism  in  the 
United  Stat'es.  —  Tyler  Withdraws  from  the  Presidential  Field.— 
Anti-Annexationists  Vote  for  Polk.—  Clay's  Defeat.—  Election 
Frauds.—  Annexation  of  Texas  Clearly  against  the  Spirit  of  the  Con- 
stitution.—  Calhoun  Casts  aside  the  Constitution. —  Federal  Conven- 
tion on  Annexation. —  Missouri  Line. —  Walker  Amendment.— An- 
nexation Bill  Signed.— Channing's  Prophecy  of  Crime  and  Conquest 
to  Follow  Texas  Annexation. 


JACKSOFS  ADMINISTEATION: 

ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  REIGN  OF  ANDREW  JACKSON. 

Andrew  Jackson's  administration  constitutes,  in  more 
respects  than  one,  an  important  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States.  With  the  nullification  ordinance  of  South 
Carolina  and  the  compromise  of  1833,  the  first  phase  in 
the  development  of  states-rightsism  came  to  a  close.  Jack- 
son's election  was  the  triumph  of  the  radical  over  the 
moderate  democracy.  In  the  person  of  Adams,  the  last 
statesman  who  was  to  occupy  it  for  a  long  time  left  the 
White  House:  professional  politicians  and  the  crowd  took 
possession  of  it. 

A  mere  accident,  in  1824,  broke  down  the  barrier  which 
had,  since  1804,  restricted  the  taking  of  the  initiative  in 
the  matter  of  proposing  presidential  candidates  to  congress. 
William  H.  Crawford,  secretary  of  the  treasury  under  Mon- 
roe, was  the  designated  candidate  of  a  portion  of  the  demo- 
cratic party,  when  a  stroke  of  paralysis  made  of  him  a 
physical  and  mental  ruin.  Spite  of  this,  however,  his  more 
intimate  friends  did  not  want  to  drop  him.  Their  hope  was 
in  the  weight  which  custom  gave  to  the  nomination  made 
by  a  so-called  "caucus "of  the  party  members  in  congress. 
They  had  not  rightly  read  the  signs  of  the  times.  The  un- 
democratic "King  Caucus"  was  already  so  thoroughly 
hated  that,  under  any  and  all  circumstances,  his  days  were 
1 


2      Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  texas. 

numbered.*  The  effort  to  make  such  a  man  the  head  of  the 
nation  decided  his  immediate  and  permanent  downfall.  Only 
sixty-eight  votes  were  c&st  in  the  caucus,  and,  from  the  very 
first  moment,  Crawford  had  not  the  least  prospect  of  success.' 

The  leading  men  in  congress  considered  it  most  probable 
that  the  "dynasty  of  the  secretaries  of  state"  would  be  still 
continued,  and  that  the  younger  Adams  would  be  elected. 
The  wariest  and  oldest  politicians  began  to  evince  the  most 
noteworthy  distrust  of  the  power  of  precedent. 

Andrew  Jackson  was  a  thoroughly  "irregular"  candidate. 
The  lemslature  of  Tennessee  had  recommended  his  election, 
to  the  extreme  astonishment  of  the  people  of  the  New 
England  states,  who  did  not  know  whether  to  laugh  at  the 
absurdity  or  grow  wroth  at  the  audacity  of  the  recommen- 
dation. Hitherto,  only  the  names  of  men  with  whom  the 
people  had  been  long  acquainted  as  statesmen  filling  the 
most  important  ofiicial  positions,  had  been  mentioned  in 
connection  with  the  presidency.  But  Jackson  had  not  yet 
shown  that  he  understood  even  the  alphabet  of  the  art  of 
politics.  Tennessee  had,  indeed,  sent  him  to  the  house 
of  representatives  during  "Washington's  administration,  and 
afterwards  to  the  senate;  but  all  that  congress  knew  of  him 
was,  that,  whenever  he  began  to  speak,  violence  choked  his 
utterance.  And  his  mind  was  as  untrained  as  his  passions 
were  unbridled.  He  had  been,  it  is  true,  a  lawyer  of  note 
in  Tennessee,  and  had  sat  on  the  bench  of  the  supreme  court 
of  the  state.  But  he  had  won  his  laurels  in  this  field  at  the 
time  when,  to  both  lawyers  and  judges,  it  was,  in  Tennessee, 

'  The  caucus  was,  however,  not  only  undemocratic,  but  unqnestionaWy 
in  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  for  art.  II,  sec.  1,  §  2,  pro- 
vides: "  No  senator  or  representative,  or  person  holding  an  oflBce  of  trust 
or  profit  under  the  United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  elector." 

'  "The  caucus  has  hurt  nobody  but  its  friends,  as  far  as  I  can  judge 
now."  Dan.  Webster  to  Ez.  Webster,  22  Feb.,  1824,  Webster's  Priv. 
Corresp.,  I,  p.  346. 


JACKSON  B   CHAKAOTEB.  3 

a  matter  of  almost  as  much  importance  to  be  up  to  the 
wiles  and  intrigues  of  the  Indians,  to  have  a  fearless  heart, 
and  be  a  good  shot,  as  it  was  to  be  versed  in  the  law  of  the 
land. 

The  nation  knew  Jackson  only  as  a  successful  and  arrogant 
general.  But  the  leading  men  of  the  eastern  states  thought, 
and  rightly  so,  that  the  political  wisdom  and  political  sobri- 
ety of  the  people  were  too  great  to  allow  them  to  pay  such 
a  price  as  the  presidency  for  the  battle  of  New  Orleans  and 
a  few  victorious  Indian  fights.  Another  force,  the  influence 
of  which  they  did  not  comprehend  until  later,  and  even  then 
only  imperfectly,  was  the  decisive  one. 

Jackson  was  the  man  of  the  masses,  because  by  his  origin 
and  his  whole  course  of  development,  both  inner  and  outer, 
he  belonged  to  them. 

From  the  mass  of  the  population  in  the  southern  states 
there  arose  an  aristocracy  of  large  landed  proprietors  and 
slave  holders,  and  in  the  northeastern  states  a  bourgeoisie 
composed  of  merchants,  those  engaged  in  industrial  pursuits 
and  the  followers  of  the  learned  professions.  The  struggle 
for  political  supremacy  had  thus  far  been  carried  on  by  these 
two  strata  of  the  population ;  and  the  plebs,  with  political 
rights,  as  a  rule  did  no  more  than  furnish  the  common  sol- 
diery with  which  the  leaders  fought  their  battles.  But  the 
heat  of  party  struggles  and  their  vicissitudes  had  already 
taught  this  same  plebs,  and  well  enough,  that  the  power  was 
in  their  hands,  and  that  it  only  depended  on  their  will, 
whether  they  would  actually  exercise  it  themselves  or  not. 
The  construction  of  the  state  was  based  on  the  assumption 
that  they  were  equal  to  the  task,  and  the  talk  of  their  leaders 
had  gradually  clothed  the  theory  of  popular  sovereignty  in 
such  a  garb,  that  its  literal  execution  and  the  idea  of  the 
republic  and  of  freedom  seemed  to  be  coincident.  All  that 
was  wanting  to  change  the  desire  of  making  the  actual  con. 


'4     Jackson's  admjnistkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

djtion  of  things  harmonize  better  with  theory,  into  a  resolve, 
was  an  exciting  cause  in  the  shape  of  an  opportunity.  This 
opportunity  was  afforded  by  Jackson's  candidacy,  for  his 
name  was  already  a  very  noticeable  one  in  the  history  of 
his  country.  It  was  not  the  victorious  general,  but  the  man 
of  the  people,  the  "  popular  man,"  who  by  his  warlike  deeds 
had  added  to  the  people's  fame  and  demonstrated  his  quali- 
fications as  a  leader,  that  was  selected  as  a  standard  bearer. 
'New  England's  scorn  was  silenced  when  the  state  conven- 
tion of  Pennsylvania,  on  the  4th  of  March,  1824,  with  only 
one  dissenting  voice,  indorsed  the  nomination  of  the  legisla- 
ture of  Tennessee.  If  it  were  not  for  the  fact  that  therfe 
were  four  candidates  in  the  field,  Jackson  would,  in  all  prob- 
ability, have  been  elected,  even  now,  by  an  imposing  major- 
ity. In  consequence  of  this  division,  no  one  of  the  candidates 
received  the  constitutional  majority  vof  all  the  electoral  votes, 
and  the  election,  therefore,  —  Clay,  who  had  received  the 
smallest  number  of  electoral  votes,  dropping  out  —  devolved 
on  the  house  of  representatives.  Crawford  had  received  only 
four  votes  more  than  Clay,  and  was  virtually  no  longer  con- 
sidered.^ The  question  was  now  between  Jackson  and  Adams, 
and  the  decision  lay  with  Clay  and  his  adherents.  Ninety- 
hine  electors  had  voted  for  Jackson,  and  eighty-four  for 
Adams.  Spite  of  this,  however,  Clay  cast  his  weight  into 
the  balance  for  Adams,  and  the  latter  was  elected  by  the 
liouse  of  representatives,  by  the  votes  of  thirteen  states 
against  eleven,  of  which  last  seven  were  cast  for  Jackson  and 
four  for  Crawford.' 

'  "  Shortly  before  the  election  of  president,  a  meeting  was  held  by  the 
members  of  the  New  York  delegation,  friendly  to  the  election  of  Mr. 
Crawford,  at  which,  upon  a  full  view  of  the  subject,  they  decided  with 
jfreat  unanimity  tx)  adhere  to  Mr.  Crawford  to  the  end,  and  leave  the  elec- 
tion to  be  made  by  others."  Hammond,  The  Hist,  of  Political  Parties  in 
the  State  of  New  York,  II,  pp.  540,  541. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  VIII,  p.  324. 


A   CHAEGE   AGAINST   CLAY.  5. 

Twelve  days  before  the  election  in  the  house  of  represent- 
atives, the  Columbian  Observer,  a  journal  issued  in  Phil- 
adelphia, had  printed  an  anonymous  letter  charging  Clay 
with  having  traded  his  influence  to  Adams  for  the  secreta- 
ryship of  state.  One  Kreraer,  a  half-educated  representative 
from  the  rural  districts  of  Pennsylvania,  acknowledged  him- 
self later  to  be  the  author  of  the  letter,  and  persisted  in  his 
charge,  although  he  refused  to  appear  as  a  witness  before 
the  committee  of  the  house  of  representatives,  which  at 
Clay's  own  request  had  been  appointed  to  investigate  the 
matter.  The  Jackson  party  eagerly  grasped  at  the  accusa- 
tion, and  when  Clay  afterwards  accepted  the  secretaryship 
of  state,  his  acceptance  was  declared  an  entirely  valid  proof 
of  its  truth.  Jackson  himself  was  fully  convinced  of  his 
rival's  guilt,  and  remained  so  until  his  dying  day.  "The 
knaves,"  wrote  Clay  January  29,  1825,  to  F.  P.  Blair,  "  can- 
not comprehend  how  a  man  can  be  honest."  *  Unfortunately 
enough,  circumstances  afforded  the  "knaves"  and  little  souls 
the  most  various  points  of  support  for  their  imputations  and 
suspicions.  Clay  was  neither  personally  nor  politically  a 
friend  of  Mr,  Adams.  He  complains  himself  that  he  was 
left  "  only  a  choice  of  evils." '  Besides,  Kremer's  charge  was 
one  of  those  libels  which,  in  skillful  hands,  never  fail  to  do 
good  service,  no  matter  what  the  attitude  one  may  assume 
towards  them.  If  Clay  had  not  been  invited  to  take  a  place 
in  the  cabinet,  or  if  he  had  declined  the  call,  there  were 
those  who,  with  hypocritical  glances,  would  have  congratu- 
lated themselves  that  "honest  Kremer"  —  evidently  only  a 
coarse  tool  in  the  hands  of  others — had  by  his  opportune  rev- 
elations prevented  the  "  corrupt  trade." '    Adams  and  Clay 

'  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  112. 
« Ibid.,  p.  110. 

•»  According  to  Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  I,  p.  70,  the  letter  was 
probably  written  by  Eaton. 


6      Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

would  have  gained  notliing;  but  the  most  insignificant  per- 
son might  henceforth  ho^De  to  be  able  to  compel  the  most 
distinffuished  and  best  tried  men  of  the  nation  to  bend  to 
the  force  of  the  basest  calumny.  All  the  protestations  pos- 
sible that  they  had  not  been  influenced  by  force,  would  have 
availed  the  president  and  Clay  as  little  as  the  assurances, 
supported  by  the  testimony  of  unimpeachable  witnesses, 
that  their  decisions  had  been  governed  only  by  political  and 
patriotic  considerations,  availed  them  now.  Benton,  Jack- 
son's fanatical  partisan,  declared  then,  and  later  in  public,  in 
emphatic  words,  that  before  December  15,  1824,  that  is, 
long  before  the  time  at  which  it  was  said  the  alleged  trade 
was  made,  Clay  himself  had  informed  him  that  he  would 
vote  for  Adams.^  James  Buchanan,  who,  according  to  Jack- 
son's statement,  proposed  the  same  trade  to  him,  at  the  sug- 
gestions of  "  Clay's  friends,"  in  January,  1825,  was  obliged 
to  absolve  Clay  from  being  privy  to  it  in  any  way,  and  to  take 
this  dubious  attempt  at  friendly  mediation  entirely  on  his 
own  shoulders.  Yet,  spite  of  all  this,  the  base  lie  remained 
a  great  impediment  in  the  way  of  Adams'  further  progress, 
but  especially  of  Clay's,  although  they  had  the  fullest  cer- 
tainty that  their  names  would  be  handed  down  to  histoiy 
unsullied  by  this  blot. 

The  accusation  was  so  entirely  baseless  that  it  could  not, 
for  a  long  series  of  years,  have  played  so  significant  a  part 
in  the  history  of  presidential  elections,  were  it  not  that 
another  circumstance  made  the  election  of  Adams,  through 
Clay's  influence,  appear  in  the  eyes  of  a  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple as  the  commission  of  a  great  crime.  Jackson  had  re- 
ceived a  no  trifling  plurality,  both  of  the  electoral  and  pop- 
ular vote;  and  in  several  of  the  states  which  had  voted  for 
Crawford  or  Clay,  he  was  second  in  favor.     Relying  on  this, 

"Thirty  Yeara'  View,  I,  p.  48;  Niles',  XXX,  pp.  375,  376.  Compare, 
also,  Clay's  Priv.  Corresp.,  pp.  109-112. 


DEMANDS  OF  JACKSON'S  ADHERENTS.  7 

be  claimed  that  the  house  of  representatives  had  made  bold 
to  trample  the  will  of  the  people  under  foot.^  This  was  bis 
honest  conviction,  and  this,  almost  more  than  the  personal 
undeceiving  he  had  experienced,  was  the  source  of  the  acri- 
mony to  which  he  gave  vent  on  every  occasion,  in  a  way 
that  showed  an  utter  absence  of  tact. 

Tlie  reproach  found  the  loudest  echo  among  th6  people. 
The  constitutionality  of  Adams'  election  was,  of  course,  not 
denied ;  but  its  "  moral "  justification  was  called  in  question.' 
The  "moral"  justification,  as  It  seemed  to  this  conception 
of  the  "  Demos  Krateo "  principle,  was  not,  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, coincident  with  the  provision  of  the  constitution; 
and  the  majority  of  the  people  joined  with  Jackson  in  de- 
manding that  the  latter  should  be  unconditionally  subordi- 
nated to  the  former.^  This  demand  was  not  only  in  direct 
contradiction  with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitution, 
but  it  attacked  the  principle  of  the  supremacy  of  law.     In 

'  He  writes  in  July,  1826 :  "  If  it  be  true  that  the  administration  have 
gone  into  power  contrary  to  the  voice  of  the  nation,  and  are  now  expecting 
by  means  of  this  power  thus  acquired  to  mold  the  public  will  into  an  ac- 
quiescence with  their  authority,  then  is  the  issue  fairly  made  out,  shall  the 
government  or  the  people  rule?  " 

*  Benton  writes,  February  8,  1825,  to  John  Scott,  the  only  representa- 
tive from  Missouri  who  had  decided  to  cast  the  vote  of  the  state  for  Adamsi 
"The  vote  which  you  intend  thus  to  give  is  not  your  own.  It  belongs  to 
the  people  of  the  state  of  Missouri.  They  are  against  Mr.  Adams.  I,  in 
their  name,  do  solemnly  protest  against  your  intention,  and  deny  your 
moral  power  thus  to  bestow  their  vote."    Niles,  XXVIIl,  p.  51. 

*  The  election  of  Mr.  Adams  was  perfectly  constitutional,  and  as  such, 
fully  submitted  to  by  the  people;  but  it  was  also  a  violation  of  the  Demoi 
Krateo  (nio)  principle,  and  that  violation  was  signally  rebuked.  .  .  . 
Still,  the  great  objection  to  the  election  of  Mr.  Adams  was  in  the  violation 
of  the  principle  Demos  Krateo,  and  in  the  question  which  it  raised  of  the 
capacity  of  the  Demos  to  choose  a  safe  president  for  themselves  .  .  . 
upon  it  (this  high  ground)  the  battle  was  mainly  fought  (1828)  and  won. 
...  It  was  a  victory  of  principle."  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  1, 
l.p.  47,  49. 


8      Jackson's  administisAtion  —  annexation  of  texas. 

its  ultimate  consequence,  it  raised  the  caprice  of  a  majority, 
and  possibly  of  a  plurality  of  those  possessed  of  the  right 
of  suffrage,  to  the  dignity  of  sole  law  of  the  land.  It  was 
not  a  postulate  of  democracy,  but  the  overthrow  of  the 
constitutional  state.  In  a  democratic  constitutional  state, 
the  legally  and  morally  binding  rule  is  not  the  will  of  the 
majority  of  the  people  expressed  in  any  way  that  suits  their 
whims,  but  the  will  of  the  majority  expressed  in  the  way 
provided  by  the  constitution,  and  in  no  other.  Unquestion- 
ably, in  such  a  state,  "  the  people's "  will  is  the  will  of  the 
state;  but  the  highest  expression  of  "  the  people's  "  will,  that 
which  unconditionally  governs,  is  the  constitution,  outside 
the  limit  of  which  lies  revolution.  The  Jackson  democrats 
demanded  the  subordination  of  the  well-considered  will  of 
'*  the  people,"  fixed  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land,  to 
the  momentary  wishes  of  the  people,  which,  in  part,  at  least, 
eould  be  ascertained  only  by  uncertain  combinations  of  cir- 
cumstances. 

The  constitutional  provisions  relating  to  the  election  of  a 
president  were  based  on  two  fundamental  notions:  the  elec- 
tion was  to  be  an  indirect  one,  and  in  case  no  candidate  re- 
ceived a  majority  of  all  the  electoral  votes,  an  election  from 
a  smaller  number  of  candidates  was  to  be  had  by  another 
electoral  body.  To  the  people,  therefore,  it  had  seemed  well, 
without  providing  for  any  exception,  to  surrender  all  right 
to  the  direct  election  of  the  president,  and  to  charge  men 
with  it  who  stood  to  them  in  a  confidential  relation.  If  tliis 
course  of  procedure  was  a  damnable  violation  of  the  "  Demos 
Krateo  principle,"  the  people  alone  were  responsible  for  it. 
If  the  cause  of  the  violation  of  the  Demos  Krateo  princij)le 
were  a  want  of  confidence  in  "  the  capacity  of  the  Demos  to 
choose  a  safe  president  for  themselves,"  the  burthen  of  the 
undemocratic  doubt  had  to  be  borne  by  the  Demos  alone. 
If,  four  years  later,  Jackson's  election  was  a  victory  of  the 


HKANING   OF   JACKSON's  ELECTIOK.  9 

right  democratic  principle,  it  was  a  victory  of  the  people 
over  their  own  self-willed  ordering,  incorporated  into,  and 
remaining  in,  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land:  the  people 
slapped  their  own  face  and  made  a  laughing  stock  of  their 
constitution.  If  the  electors  had,  without  oftering  any  re- 
sistance, allowed  the  power  confided  to  them  to  be  wrested 
from  them,  and"  contented  themselves  with  the  empty  form, 
that  certainly  imposed  no  duty  on  the  house  of  representa- 
tives to  follow  the  example  when  the  election  devolved  on  it. 
The  constitution  intended  that  the  house  should  truly  elect; 
that  a  plurality  of  the  electoral  votes  should  not  be  a  suffi- 
cient expression  of  "the  people's"  will;  for  it  cannot  be 
assumed  that  its  framers  agreed  to  any  provision  which 
should  simply  create  an  empty  and  objectless  ceremony. 

These  events  in  the  election  of  1824  played  so  great  a  part 
in  the  electoral  campaign  of  1828  that  Senator  Benton 
rightly  designated  its  issue  as  "the  victory  of  the  Demos 
Krateo  principle  over  the  theory  of  the  constitution."  The 
question  of  the  merits  of  the  Adams  administration  and  of 
the  relative  statesmanlike  worth  or  worthlessness  of  the  two 
candidates,  was  thrown  completely  into  the  shade.  Adams 
was  not  to  be  reelected,  in  any  case,  because  success  was  not 
to  be  recognized  as  a  justification  of  the  "theory  of  the  con- 
stitution." Jackson  had  to  be  elected,  that  "the.  people" 
might  demonstrate  that  to  despise  their  "  will,"  even  under 
the  protecting  mantle  of  the  constitution,  was  a  revolt  of 
the  servant  against  his  master,  as  foolish  as  it  was  audacious. 
Tliis  was  the  soul  of  this  whole  electoral  campaign,  the  only 
principle  involved  in  it.  This  one  thought,  like  a  tidal 
wave,  overflooded  all  rational  political  thought,  all  political 
thought  which  concerned  itself  with  the  real  interests  of  the 
people.  Intoxication  ruled  the  day:  the  "Demos"  wished 
to  strut  about  in  all  their  majesty.  The  power  and  energy 
of  their  will  they  brilliantly  demonstrated,  but  the  more 


10    Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

sober-minded  believed  that  thej  had  again  reached  one  of 
those  turning  points  at  which  the  question,  how  far  the  na- 
tional history  was  a  justification  of  the  principle  of  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  people,  was  a  pertinent  one. 

The  most  serious  thing  was  not  that  Andrew  Jackson  was 
preferred  to  John  Quincy  Adams,  nor  that  the  stiff-necked 
swordsman  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  state.  A  great 
party,  the  greatest  of  the  four  parties  in  the  field,  had  de- 
sired to  do  the  same  tiling  four  years  before,  and  the  battle 
was  a  relatively  unimportant  one.  The  motives  which  now 
led  the  people,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  gave  effect  to 
their  will,  showed  that  the  democratic  development  had  en- 
tered on  a  new  phase.  The  most  forcible  arguments  were 
the  erection  of  a  hickory  pole  and  a  "  hurrah  for  Andrew 
Jackson ! "  The  war  of  words,  both  in  the  press  and  on  the 
"  stump,"  was  carried  on  more  violently  than  ever  before; 
but  it  had  never  yet  been  so  devoid  of  political  meaning. 
From  the  time  of  the  second  presidential  election,  personal 
gossip  had,  in  a  very  great  measure,  become  the  loathsome 
seasoning  of  presidential  campaigns;  but  now  gossip  was 
turned  into  base  and  studied  calumny.  It  no  longer  seemed 
to  be  the  task  of  parties  to  expose  the  grounds  of  the  greater 
worthiness  and  serviceableness  of  their  own,  but  the  private 
and  political  vileness  of  the  opposing  candidates.  The  most 
important  newspapers  did  not  blush  to  trample  together  the 
most  sacred  family  relations  into  campaign  mud.  In  this, 
indeed,  they  overshot  the  mark.  The  rule  of  political  pas- 
sion over  the  healthy  moral  feeling  of  the  people  did  not  ex- 
tend far  enough  to  permit  such  weapons  to  perform  good 
service.  They  were  chiefly  employed  against  Jackson,  and 
contributed  their  part  to  his  brilliant  victory.  He  received 
one  hmulred  aiid  seventy-eight  electoral  votes,  against  only 
eighty- three  for  Adams.^ 

•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  X,  p.  394. 


Jackson's  inaugueatioh.  11 

Tlie  picture  presented  at  the  solemnities  attending  tlie 
inauguration  was  in  keeping  with  the  character  of  the  elec- 
toral campaign.  Washington  was  overflooded  with  guests 
from  far  and  near,  who  demeaned  themselves  as  if  the 
threatened  life  of  the  republic  had  been  made  safe  bj  infi- 
nite exertion.^  A  most  motley  crowd,  they  gathered  around 
the  new  holder  of  power.  The  victorious  plebs  showed  at 
the  reception  at  the  White  House,  in  the  most  forcible  man- 
ner, how  entirely  they  felt  themselves  at  home  there.' 

The  most  surprising  and  most  significant  of  all  the  strange 
faces  among  them  were  the  "  hungry  ones,"  who  were  to  be 
found  in  every  group  of  this  society,  swept  together  from 
all  quarters.  Wheresoever  the  carcass  is,  there  will  the  vul- 
tures be  gathered  together. 

The  inauguration  address  declared:  "The  recent  demon- 
stration of  public  sentiment  inscribes  on  the  list  of  executive 
duties,  in  characters  too  legible  to  be  overlooked,  the  task  of 
reform."  Tlie  influencing  of  elections  by  governmental 
patronage  should  cease,  and  "those  causes  which  have  dis- 
turbed ^  the  rightful  course  of  appointment,  and  have  placed 
or  continued  power  in  unfaithful  or  incompetent  hands,"  be 
counteracted. 

■  "  To-day  we  have  had  the  inaugnration.  A  monstrous  crowd  of  people 
is  in  the  city.  I  never  saw  anything  like  it  before.  Persons  have  come 
five  hundred  miles  to  see  General  Jackson,  and  they  really  seem  to  think 
that  the  country  is  rescued  from  some  dreadful  danger."  Webster's  I'riv. 
Corresp.,  I,  p.  473. 

* "  After  tliis  ceremony  [the  inauguration]  was  over,  the  president  went 
to  the  palace  to  receive  company,  and  there  he  was  visited  by  immense 
crowds  of  all  sorts  of  people,  from  the  highest  and  most  polished,  down  to 
the  most  vulgar  and  gross  in  the  nation.  I  never  saw  sucli  a  mixture. 
The  reign  of  King  'Mob'  seemed  triumphant."  J.  Stoiy  to  his  wife, 
March  7,  18-29,    Life  and  Letters  of  J.  Story,  I,  p.  563. 

*  The  rightful  course  of  the  bestowal  of  office  had  indeed  been  just  dis- 
turbed in  an  ominous  manner,  but  not  by  Adams,  but  by  the  senate,  and 
by  Jackson's  friends  in  the  senate.     "  After  General  Jackson  was  known 


12    Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Judge  Story  said  that  the  address  was  couched  in  terms  so 
general,  that  it  might  mean  everything  or  nothing.  Tlie  por- 
tion just  cited  alone  did  he  make  an  exception  of.  On  what 
facts  the  charges  made  against  the  out-going  administration 
were  based,  was  more  than  any  one  could  tell;  but  only  few 
permitted  themselves  to  doubt  that  the  promises  of  "reform  " 
were  very  seriously  intended.  People  were  not  so  ingenuous 
as  to  ascribe  the  extraordinary  stream  that  flowed  towards 
"Washington  simply  to  joy  over  the  "salvation  of  the  coun- 
try." The  "saviors  of  their  country  had  come  to  get  their 
pay,  and  the  words  above  cited  were  looked  upon  as  an  assur- 
ance that  they  should  not  be  disappointed.^ 

Did  they  in  this,  relying  on  the  personality  of  the  man 
now  in  power,  think  only  of  a  temporary  deviation  from  the 
system  of  appointment  hitherto  followed;  or  did  they  sup- 
pose that  deeper  and  more  general  causes  were  preparing  a 
permanent  change  of  system? 

to  be  elected,  and  before  his  terra  of  office  began,  many  important  offices 
became  vacant  by  tlie  usual  causes  of  death  and  resig^iation.  Mr.  Adams, 
of  course,  nominated  persons  to  fill  these  vacant  offices.  But  a  majority 
of  the  senate  was  composed  of  the  friends  of  General  Jackson ;  and,  in- 
stead of  acting  on  these  nominations,  and  filling  the  various  offices  with 
ordinary  promptitude,  the  nominations  were  postponed  to  a  day  beyond 
the  4tli  of  March,  for  the  purpose,  openly  avowed,  of  giving  the  patron- 
age of  the  appointments  to  the  president  who  was  then  coming  into  office 
.  .  .  that  decision  of  the  senate  went  far  to  unfix  the  proper  balance 
of  the  government  ...  it  completely  defeated  one  great  object, 
whicli  we  are  told  the  framers  of  tlie  constitution  contemplated,  in  the 
manner  of  forming  the  senate;  that  is,  that  the  senate  might  be  a  body 
not  changing  with  the  election  of  a  president,  and  therefore  likely  to  be 
able  to  hold  over  him  some  check  or  restraint  in  regard  to  bringing  his  own 
friends  and  partisans  into  power  with  him,  and  thus  rewarding  their  ser- 
vices to  him  at  the  public  expense."    Webst-'s  Works,  I,  p.  'Sod. 

'The  "United  States  Telegraph,"  the  principal  organ  of  tlie  Jackson 
iwty.  ediied  by  DuSF  Green,  writes  as  early  as  the  2d  of  November,  1823: 
**  W.i  know  not  what  line  of  policy  General  Jackson  will  adopt.  We  take 
it  for  granted,  however,  that  he  will  reward  his  friends  and  punish  his  ene- 
mies."   Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  I,  p.  167.  r- 


PEOMISES   OF  EEFOEM.  13 

The  electoral  campaign  of  1824  bronght  to  light  a  corre- 
spondence which  had  passed  between  Monroe  and  Jackson 
in  the  year  1816,  in  which  the  latter  expressly  recommended 
the  newly  elected  president,  in  his  appointments,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  selection  of  the  members  of  his  cabinet,  to  rise 
above  party  spirit,  as  became  the  head  of  the  state.*  This 
view  seemed  to  have  become  more  deeply  rooted  in  his  mind 
with  years,  and  to  have  become  more  rigorously  developed. 
When  Tennessee,  in  1825,  nominated  him  again  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  presidency,  he  resigned  his  commission  as  United 
States  senator,  because  that  office  might  be  used  by  him  to  pro- 
mote his  candidacy.  He,  at  the  same  time,  declared  an  im- 
pure combination  of  the  executive  and  legislative  powers  to 
be  the  greatest  danger  to  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and 
recommended,  in  order  to  guard  against  it,  an  amendment 
to  the  constitution  excluding  members  of  congress  from  all 
federal  offices  —  the  bench  excepted  —  during  the  term  for 
which  they  were  elected,  and  for  two  years  after  its  termina- 
tion.* 

Jackson  was  no  demaoroonie,  and  has  never  been  taken  for 
one.  The  programme  above  referred  to  was  not  a  conscious 
captatio  benevolentiw,  and  the  promised  reform  meant  some- 
thing more  than  a  caring  for  his  hungry  partisans.  Not  in 
vain  and  not  wrongly  did  he  point  to  the  "  demonstration  of 
publ ic  sentiment "  which  demanded  the  "  reform."    The  real 

•  "Everything  depends  on  the  selection  of  your  ministry.  In  every 
selection,  party  and  party  feelings  should  be  avoided.  Now  is  the  time  to 
exterminate  that  monster  called  party  spirit.  .  .  .  The  chief  magis- 
trate of  a  great  and  powerful  nation  should  never  indulge  in  party  feel- 
ings. His  conduct  should  be  liberal  and  disinterested,  always  bearing 
m  mind  that  he  acts  for  the  whole,  and  not  a  part  of  the  community.  By 
this  course  you  will  exalt  the  national  character,  and  acquire  for  yourself  a 
name  as  imperishable  as  monumental  marble.  (Consult  no  party  in  yoar 
choice."    NUes'  Reg.,  XXVI,  pp.  164,  165. 

•  NUes,  XIX,  p.  157. 


14     Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

source  of  alarm  was  the  conduct  of  tlie  people  who  had  taken 
a  principal  part  in  the  agitation  of  the  election.  As  to 
Jackson  personally,  even  Webster  still  harbored  the  hope 
that  the  president  had  intended  only  to  throw  them  a  sop, 
and  that  the  state  would  escape  with  little  hurt.'  Jackson 
would  scarcely  have  been  elected  by  so  overwhelming  a  ma- 
jority if  that  had  been  the  universal  opinion  of  politicians. 
And  if  he  had  made  the  attempt,  he  would,  judging  from 
the  rest  of  the  history  of  his  administration,  provided  he  put 
his  full  personality  into  it,  certainly  have  been  successful;  but 
his  stand  would  have  been  as  hard  as  any  in  the  many  victo- 
rious battles  which  he  fought.  But,  by  this  means,  only  a 
short  delay  would  have  been  gained.  To  prevent  the  evil,  it 
was  necessarj'  to  avert  its  causes,  and  to  do  this  there  was 
need  of  something  more  than  a  powerful  will;  a  single  per- 
son could  assuredly  not  do  it. 

On  the  great  questions  of  the  day,  but  only  slightly 
noticed,  a  stagnation  of  the  political  spirit,  and  as  a  natural 
consequence  of  this,  gradually,  also,  a  sluggishness  of  politi- 
cal life  had  early  begun.  The  period  of  the  war  of  inde- 
pendence had  by  no  means  borne  the  sublime  ideal  character 
with  which  fancy  has  so  often  clothed  it.*     Yet  the  leading 

'  "  What  it  [the  inaugoration  sjjeech]  says  about  reform  in  office  may  be 
either  a  prelude  to  a  general  change  in  office,  or  a  mere  sop  to  soothe  the 
hunger,  mthout  satisfying  it,  of  the  thousand  expectants  for  office  who 
throng  the  city  and  clamor  all  over  the  country.  I  expect  some  changes, 
but  not  a  great  many  at  present."  Priv.  Corresp.,  I,  p.  473.  As  early  as 
January,  1829,  Webster  wrote:  "Great  efforts  are  making  to  put  him 
[Jackson]  up  to  a  general  sweep,  as  to  all  offices;  springing  from  great 
doubt  whether  he  is  disposed  to  go  it."  Thereupon  he  remarks,  how- 
ever: "  lie  will  either  go  with  the  party,  as  they  say  in  New  York,  or  go 
the  whole  hog,  as  it  is  phrased  elsewhere,  making  all  the  places  he  can  for 
friends  and  supporters,  and  shaking  a  rod  of  terror  at  his  opposers."  Ibid. , 
I,  p.  467. 

•John  Adams  writes  on  the  9th  of  February,  1811,  to  Josiah  Quincy: 
"  But,  to  tell  you  a  very  great  pecret,  as  far  as  I  am  capable  of  comparing 


STATE   OFFICES  AND   KATIONAL.     "  15 

men,  with  only  very  few  exceptions,  were  borne  onward  by 
one  great  thought,  and  filled  with  a  nobler  ambition;  and  in 
the  case  of  the  majority  of  the  people,  there  was,  spite  of  all 
their  indolence  and  short-sighted  selfishness,  no  ignoring 
that  they  were  fully  conscious  that  they  were  fighting  for 
their  own  cause  and  for  a  good  one. 

We  have  already  seen  what  serious  alarm  it  then  caused, 
that  the  men  of  the  best  talent  left  congress,  by  degrees, 
because  they  found  a  more  congenial  and  more  remunerative 
field  for  their  political  activity  in  the  several  states.  Men 
of  the  acutest  vision,  Madison,  for  instance,  were  of  opin- 
ion, that  this  would  remain  so  also  under  the  new  constitu- 
tion.* And  during  the  first  years,  it  seemed  so  in  fact. 
Washington  frequently  found  it  difficult  to  fill  the  places  in 
his  cabinet  and  the  posts  of  ambassadors;  a  governorship 
was  preferred  to  a  seat  in  the  senate  of  the  Union,  and  even  to 
the  position  of  chief  justice  of  the  federal  supreme  court; 
and  the  ablest  men  could  often  be  moved  to  accept  a  renom- 
ination  to  congress  only  by  the  most  urgent  appeals  of  their 
friends.'^  But  when  parties  became  more  sharply  defined, 
and  the  Federal  government  grew  in  estimation,  a  rapid 
change  took  place  in  this  respect.    Even ,  during  Madison's 

the  merit  of  different  periods,  I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  we  were 
better  than  you  are.  We  had  as  many  poor  creatures  and  selfish  bemgs, 
in  proportion,  among  us  as  you  have  among  you;  nor  were  there  then 
more  enlightened  men,  or  in  greater  number,  in  proportion,  than  there  are 
now."    Works  of  J.  Adams,  IX,  p.  630. 

» Federalist,  No  XLIV. 

•Hamilton  writes  in  1799  to  a  relative  in  Scotland:  "  Public  office  in 
this  country  has  tew  attractions.  The  pecuniary  emolument  is  so  incon- 
siderable as  to  amount  to  a  sacrifice  to  any  man  who  can  employ  his  time 
Avith  advantage  in  any  liberal  profession.  The  opportunity  of  doing  good, 
from  the  jealousy  of  power,  and  the  spirit  of  faction,  is  too  small  in  anj 
station  to  warrant  a  long  continuance  of  private  sacrifices."  Reminis 
cences  of  J.  A.  Hamilton,  p.  15. 


16    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

first  presidency  (1809-1813),  office-hunting  by  members  of 
congress  was  carried  on  to  such  an  extent  and  in  such  a  way 
that  an  effort  was  made  to  oppose  a  direct  hinderance  to  it 
by  the  constitution,'  and  Quincy,  in  one  of  his  most  brill- 
iant speeches,  drew  up  a  most  unmerciful  indictment  against 
the  guilty  ones.'* 

Madison's  supposition  that  the  offices  of  the  different 
states  would  continue  to  be  more  eagerly  looked  for,  turned 
out  to  be  erroneous.     But  whatever  the  relative  estimation 

'  Both  in  the  plan  of  a  constitution  submitted  to  the  Philadelphia  con- 
vention by  Randolph  and  in  that  submitted  by  Ch.  Pinckney,  it  was  pro- 
vided that  ho  member  of  either  house  of  congress  should  be  invested  either 
by  election  or  by  nomination  with  any  federal  office  during  the  period  for 
which  he  was  elected.  Randolph  wished  to  see  the  prohibition  extended, 
both  for  representatives  and  senators,  to  a  number  of  years  to  be  more  ac- 
curately determined,  and  Pinckney,  at  least  for  the  senators,  to  one  year 
after  the  expiration  of  the  term.  This  question  was  frequently  discussed 
by  the  convention,  and  only  after  the  conclusion  of  consultations,  the  pro- 
vision, different  in  principle,  of  Art.  I,  sec.  6,  §  2,  was  decided  on.  (See 
EUot,  Deb.  v.,  pp.  127,  130,189,  190,  375,  378,  420.)  Motions  were  now 
repeatedly  introduced  into  congress  to  change  the  constitution  in  the 
sense  of  the  Randolph  and  Pinckney  draughts. 

'"This  class  of  persons  ...  are  in  truth  spending  their  time  at 
the  doors  of  the  palace  or  the  crannies  of  the  departments,  and  laying  low 
snares  to  catch  for  then^selves  or  their  relations  every  stray  office  that  flits 
by  them.  .  .  ,  I  never  have  seen  and  I  never  shall  see  any  of  these 
notorious  solicitors  of  office  for  themselves  or  their  relations  standing  on 
this  or  the  other  floor,  bawling  and  bullying,  or  coming  down  with  dead 
votes  in  support  of  executive  measures,  but  I  think  I  see  a  hackney  la- 
boring for  hire  in  a  most  degrading  service."  Life  of  Quincy,  p.  220. 
In  Stickney's  Autobiography  of  Amos  Kendall,  on  the  whole  a  worthless 
book,  there  is  some  interesting  information  on  the  trade  in  offices  at  this 
time.  Thus,  for  instance,  an  office  passed  through  four  hands  in  a  short 
time  at  a  rapidly  increasing  price.  R.  M.  Johnson,  member  of  congress 
from  Kentucky  and  vice-president  of  the  Union  during  Van  Buren's  ad- 
ministration, was  the  mediator  in  the  trade.  The  history  of  the  Stockton 
and  Stokes  claim  belonging  to  a  later  period,  and  which  is  inferior  to  the 
notorious  Chorpenning  case,  which  belongs  to  our  own  day,  in  scarcely  any 
respect,  is  also  very  instructive. 


PROFESSIONAL   POLITICIANS.  17 

in  which  the  federal  and  state  oflBces  might  be  held  as  com- 
pared with  one  another,  the  number  of  oflSce-seekers  in- 
creased much  more  rapidly  than  the  number  of  both  kinds 
of  offices  taken  together.  Even  during  the  colonial  period, 
all  public  positions  had  had  a  peculiar  charm  for  the  people 
But  it  was  only  with  the  growing  violence  of  independent 
party  life  that  this  inclination  assumed  a  morbid  cast,  and 
it  was  only  with  advancing  democratization  that  a  definite 
class  of  office-hunters  began  to  be  formed.  As  long  as  in 
all  the  states  the  exercise'of  the  full  rights  of  citizenship 
was  made  dependent  on  the  possession  of  property  to  a 
greater  or  lesser  extent;  and  as  long  as,  at  the  same  time,in 
what  concerns  the  possession  of  property  in  general,  the 
happy  uniformity  of  a  modest  medium  prevailed,  the  whole 
political  life  of  the  people,  spite  of  all  its  deficiencies  and 
of  all  unhealthy  excrescences,  bore  the  impress  of  a  republic 
made  up  of  a  peasant  and  small  middle  class.  But  when 
later,  with  the  economic  growth  of  the  country,  the  differ- 
ence between  rich  and  poor  became  more  and  more  frequent 
and  continued  to  grow  in  magnitude,  and  citizenship  be- 
came more  and  more  the  only  requisite  to  the  full  enjoyment 
of  political  rights,  there  gradually  arose  a  guild  of  profes- 
sional politicians.  The  press  was  in  their  hands  in  part, 
and  by  its  means  they  succeeded  already  in  some  of  the  states 
in  making  themselves  felt  in  their  public  affairs.  The 
great  mass  of  active  citizens,  wrapped  up  in  their  every-day 
avocations  by  the  love  of  acquisition,  at  all  times  chara«- 
teristic  of  the  people,  did  not  perceive  how  slowly,  but  at  the 
same  time  how  uninterruptedly,  the  destinies  of  the  country 
were  passing  away  out  of  their  power;  for  they  confounded 
political  interest  with  self-acting  political  life,  and  considered 
that  when  they  had  cast  their  votes  on  the  day  of  election 
they  had  acquitted  themselves  of  their  duty  as  citizens. 
This  development  of  the  last  mentioned  state  of  things, 

a 


18     Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

was  still  in  its  first  stages  in  the  second  decade  of  tliis  cen- 
tury. Eut  the  mischief  caused  by  government  patronage 
had,  under  the  furthering  influence  of  bad  institutions, 
already  reached  a  high  degree  in  some  of  the  states.*  From 
this  point  the  poison  spread,  and  its  seeds  found  the  most 
favoring  soil  in  the  mode  of  appointment  to  ofiSce  provided 
for  by  the  constitution.  As  the  better  elements  still  exer- 
cised a  preponderating  influence  in  congress,  and  as  the  per- 
sonages in  possession  of  the  presidential  chair  did  nothing 
to  promote  the  evil,  it  was  only  after  a  long  time  that  the 
evil  could  break  out.  But  the  host  of  those  whose  appetite 
was  whetted  for  office  swelled  to  greater  dimensions  every 
day,  and  they  were  waiting  only  for  the  moment  that  a 
finger  should  be  reached  them,  to  grasp  the  arm  and  make 
themselves  master  of  the  whole  man.  And  that  after  no 
very  long  time  they  would  find  a  man  after  their  own  heart 
was  certain,  for  they  grew  every  year  more  powerful  and  more 
bold.  Even  Quincy  had  directed  his  castigatory  speech  not 
only  against  the  scabby  sheep  among  the  members  of  con- 
gress; he  still  more  angrily  scourged  the  beggar-crowd,  whom 
he  compared  to  a  lot  of  pigs  noisily  crowding  about  the 
trough.'    John  Adams  inquired  whether  the  picture,  in  so 

•Compare  the  leading  article  in Niles'  Reg.,  XVII,  pp.  426-428,  in  many 
respects  an  interesting  article. 

•  "  Is  there  on  this  earth  any  collection  of  men  in  which  exists  a  more 
intrinsic,  hearty  and  desperate  love  of  office  or  place  —  particularly  of  fat 
places?  Is  there  any  country  more  infested  than  tliis  with  the  vermin  that 
breed  in  the  corruption  of  power?  Is  there  any  in  which  place  and  official 
Mnolument  more  certainly  follow  distinguished  serviUty  at  elections,  or  base 
•currility  in  the  press?  And  as  to  eagerness  for  the  reward,  what  is  the 
fact?  Let  now  one  of  your  great  officeholders,  a  collector  of  the  customs, 
a  marshal,  a  commissioner  of  loans,  a  postmaster  in  one  of  yoiur  cities,  or 
any  officer,  agent,  or  factor  for  your  territories  or  public  lands,  or  pereon 
holding  a  place  of  minor  distinction,  but  of  considerable  profit,  be  called 
apon  to  pay  the  last  great  debt  of  nature.  Tlie  poor  man  shall  hardly  be 
dead,  he  shall  not  be  cold,  long  before  the  corpse  ia  in  the  coffin,  the  mail 


CBY   OF   COERUPTION.  19 

far  as  it  was  true,  did  not  apply  to  earlier  times  as  well  as 
to  the  present.^  But  the  course  of  events  was  a  striking 
justitieation  of  Quincy's  view,  that  people  were  slipping 
down  a  very  declivitous  path. 

Clay^  and  Randolph,^  at  the  end  of  Monroe's  administra- 
tion, renewed  Quincy's  jeremiad  over  the  corruption  of  the 
times,  and  when  the  younger  Adams  took  the  presidential 
chair,  it  was  well  known  to  all  those  acquainted  with  the 
actual  course  of  political  workings,  that  to  come  to  an  under- 
standing with   the  office-seekers  was  a  cardinal  question/ 

shall  be  crowded  to  repletion  with  lettera  and  certificates,  and  recommcB- 
dations  and  representations,  and  every  species  of  sturdy,  sycophantic  solici- 
tation by  which  obtrusive  mendicity  seeks  charity  or  invites  compassion. 
Why,  sir,  we  hear  the  clamor  of  the  craving  animals  at  the  treasury-trough 
here  in  this  capital.  Such  running,  such  jostling,  such  wriggling,  snch 
clambering  over  one  another's  backs,  such  squealing  because  the  tub  is  bo 
narrow  and  the  company  so  crowded!  No,  sir,  let  os  not  talk  of  stoical 
apathy  towards  the  tilings  of  the  national  treastuy,  either  in  this  peofde  or 
m  their  representatives  or  senators."    Life  of  Quincy,  p.  221. 

'  "  But  are  you  right  in  supposing  the  rage  for  office  more  eager  and 
craving  now  than  it  always  has  been,  or  more  grasping  and  intriguing  for 
executive  offices  than  legislative  stations?  Have  you  read  many  of  the  cir- 
cular letters?  Have  you  attended  much  to  the  course  of  elections,  even  in 
our  New  England  town  meetings?  "    J.  Adams,  Works,  IX,  p.  Q3S. 

*  "  I  have  been  again  and  again  shocked,  during  this  session,  by  instances 
of  solicitation  for  places  before  the  vacancies  existed.  The  pulse  of  incum- 
bents, who  happened  to  be  taken  ill,  is  not  marked  with  more  anxiety  hj 
the  attending  physicians,  than  by  those  who  desire  to  succeed  them,  though 
with  very  opposite  feelings."    Speeches  of  H.  Clay,  I,  p.  230. 

'  "  I  concur  most  heartily,  sir,  in  the  censure  which  has  been  passed  upon 
the  gn%ediness  of  office,  which  stands  a  stigma  on  the  present  generation. 
Men  from  whom  we  might  expect,  and  from  whom  I  did  expect  better 
things,  crowd  the  ante-chamber  of  the  palace  for  every  vacant  office;  nay, 
even  before  men  are  dead,  their  shoes  are  wanted  for  some  bare-footed 
office-seeker."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  VIII,  p.  18. 

♦  Webster  writes,  May  9,  1830:  *'  In  general,  when  I  open  a  letter,  the 
silent  question  which  I  put  to  myself  is,  who  is  this  that  wants  a  cadet- 
ship  or  a  midshipman's  warrant,  or  an  office,  or  an  errand  done  at  one  ot 
the  departments?"    Priv.  Corresp.,  I,  p.  oOO. 


20    Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  tezas. 

Bat  now  there  came  applications  not  only  for  places  that 
were  already  vacant,  but  for  those  which  people  hoped  to  see 
soon  made  vacant  by  death.  Without  any  palliating  con- 
cealment, the  plain  demand  was  made  to  deprive  political 
opponents  of  their  offices,  and  to  distribute  them  to  political 
friends.  Adams  related,  in  May,  1825,  that  he  was  "  urged 
very  earnestly  and  from  various  quarters,"  to  dismiss  the 
custom  house  officials  who  "throughout  the  Union,  in  all 
probability,"  had  opposed  his  election,^  He  dejectedly  com- 
plains: "One  of  the  heaviest  burdens  of  my  station  is  to 
hear  applications  for  office,  often  urged,  accompanied  with 
the  cry  of  distress,  almost  every  day  in  the  year,  sometimes 
several  times  in  the  day,  and  having  it  scarcely  ever  in  my 
power  to  administer  the  desired  relief."  ^  What  stood  in  his 
way,  indeed,  was  only  a  healthy  political  insight  and  honor- 
able principles — limitations  which  were  not  respected  by  the 
applicants.  He  did  not  yield,  and  had  to  experience  the  anger 
of  those  who  had  been  undeceived.  An  unsolicited  adviser, 
it  is  said,  prophesied  to  him  that  the  consequence  of  his 
decision  would  be  that  he  would  lose  his  office  first.  This 
circumstance  cooperated  largely  to  cause  his  defeat,  but  it  is 
going  too  far  to  ascribe  that  defeat  principally  to  it.  That 
view,  however,  was  a  very  prevalent  one,  and  this  itself  is 
significant.' 

The  real  decision  in  the  electoral  campaign  was,  by  chance, 
given  by  New  York  to  Jackson.  And  New  York  was  tlie 
state  in  which  the  bestowal  of  public  offices,  in  accordance 
with  party  purposes,  had  been  exercised  longest  and  to  the 
greatest  extent,  and  a  state  which  had  recently  taken  a  great 

'Quincy,  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  p.  147. 

•Ibid.,  p.  157. 

•Hammond  writes:  "John  Quincy  Adams  attempted  to  repudiate  it 
fthe  maxim:  to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils],  and  was  soon  politically 
proatrated."  PoUt.  Hist,  of  New  York,  I,  p.  429. 


THE   ALBANY   EEGENCT.  21 

Ptep  in  the  direction  of  radical  democracy.  All  this  was  no 
accidental  combination  of  circumstances.  Various  causes 
had  for  a  long  time  made  the  party  struggles  in  the  state 
peculiarly  violent  and  complicated.  The  heads  of  the  great 
families  who  contested  the  supremacy  with  one  another, 
learned  early  to  make  use  of  the  so-called  right  of  nominar 
tion  as  an  efficient  party  machine.  The  nominating  council 
held  the  sword  uplifted  over  the  highest  and  the  lowest  pub- 
lic officers,  and  whenever  the  interests  of  party  seemed  to  de- 
mand it,  it  mattered  not  for  what  reason,  the  stroke  was  as 
sure  to  fall  as  is  the  sun  to  sink  below  the  horizon  in  the 
evening.  The  rule  of  this  body,  which  had  now  lasted  nearly 
fifty  years,  had,  according  to  Hammond,  the  concise  and  able 
historian  of  the  state,  "  ffequently  produced  a  state  of  feeling 
in  the  public  mind  which  threatened  the  dissolution  of  the 
bonds  which  unite  together  a  civilized  and  Christian  com- 
munity." *  All  political  life  was  poisoned,  and  the  nominat- 
ing council  had  undeniably  so  great  a  part  in  bringing  this 
about,  that  in  the  convention  of  1821  for  the  revision  of  the 
constitution,  no  earnest  effort  was  made  to  have  its  existence 
continued.^ 

The  system  was  not,  however,  changed.  In  theory  men 
became,  perhaps,  a  little  more  reasonable,  but  in  practice 
they  held  fast  to  it:  for  the  politicians  had  become  too  well 
acquainted  with  its  value.  The  so-called  "  Albany  Regency  " 
soon  enjoyed  a  national  reputation,  and,  indeed,  the  machin- 

•  Polit.  Hist,  of  New  York,  II,  p.  78. 

*£kl wards  said,  in  the  convention :  "  It  is  a  lamentable  fact,  that  while 
other  states  move  on  with  tranquillily,  the  state  of  New  York,  torn  by  fac- 
tions and  dissensions,  although  the  keystone  of  the  arch  that  binds  the 
Union,  has  lost  its  power  and  reduced  its  influence.  And  what  had  been 
the  grand  cause  of  this  reduction  of  influence  and  limitation  of  power?  It 
was  the  corruption  that  had  infused  itself  into  all  the  veins  and  arteries  of 
the  government  More  iniquity  had  been  pi-acticed  in  our  legislative  hall 
than  in,  perhaps,  all  the  other  states  in  the  Union."    Ibid.,  II,  p.  75. 


22      JACKS0N*8  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXATION  OP  TEXAS. 

eiy  of  party  has  seldom  been  managed  more  efficiently  or 
with  more  certainty.^  By  means  of  the  development  of  the 
system  of  reward  and  punishment,  regardless  of  consequences, 
the  party  was  subjected  to  military  discipline,  and,  by  means 
of  its  rigid  discipline,  it  remained  unconquerable  for  many 
years.  Yan  Buren  was  the  soul  of  the  "  Regency."  ^  He 
led  the  state  trium])hantly  over  into  Jackson's  camp,  and  was 
the  designated  head  of  Jackson's  cabinet.* 

• "  All  qupstions  in  relation  to  the  selection  of  candidates  for  elective 
offices,  either  by  the  people  or  the  legislature,  were  settled  in  caucus,  and 
eveiy  member  of  the  party  was  in  honor  pledged  to  support  the  decision  of 
these  assemblies.  S.  Wright,  A.  C.  Flagg,  E.  Croswell,  B.  Knower,  J.  A. 
DIx,  and  James  Porter,  all  of  them  discreet  and  sagacious  politicians.,  con- 
stituted the  soul  of  the  Albany  Regency,  by  the  result  of  whose  delibera- 
tions the  democratic  party,  so  far  as  related  to  mere  political  operations, 
were  generally  governed."    Ibid.,  11,  p- 429. 

'  The  followmg  testimony  to  the  character  of  the  persons  in  office  in  the 
Union,  is  all  the  more  valuable  for  the  reason  that  it  emanates  from  thia 
virtuoso  of  the  policy  of  the  spoils.  Van  Buren  writes  to  Coleman,  on  the 
4th  of  April,  18_8:  *'  That  fi'om  the  proneness  on  the  part  of  agents  so  far 
removed  from  the  people  to  corruption  and  othei*  causes,  there  is  not  at  this 
moment  sufficient  honesty  in  the  administi-ation  of  this  government  to  keep 
decent  men  in  countenance."  The  conclusion  sounds  very  well  in  his 
mouth:  "  And  that  we  ai*e  indebted  for  the  little  that  remains  to  constant 
apprehension  of  rebuke  and  resistance  from  the  states."  Reminiscences 
of  J.  A.  Hamilton,  p.  77. 

•Hammond -writes:  "  In  his  first  and  only  message  as  governor  of  New 
York,  Mr.  Van  Buren  recommended  the  repeal  of  the  law  providing  for  the 
choice  of  electors  by  districts,  which  we  have  seen  was  enacted  by  the  legis- 
lature in  obedience  to  the  fiat  of  the  people  expressed  at  tlie  polls  of  the  elec- 
tion, and  the  passage  of  a  law  requiring  the  presidential  electors  to  be  chosen 
by  genei-al  ticket  and  by  a  plurality  of  votes.  His  recommendation  was 
promptly  adopted  by  both  houses  of  the  legislature,  and  a  law  passed  in 
conformity  with  it.  The  Van  Buren  party  at  that  period  was  surely  a  bold 
and  adventurous  party.  When  Mr.  Crawford  was  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  [1824;  Van  Buren  was  among  his  most  decided  partisans]  they 
successfully  opposed  giving  to  the  people  the  right  of  choosing  presidential 
electors;  in  1825,  the  same  party  advocated  the  choice  of  elpf>toi-s  by  single 
congressional  districts;  and  in  this  they  were  supported  by  a  large  majority 


MEANING   OF  THE   EEFOEM.  29 

We  may  now  understand  what  was  the  meaning  of  the 
reform  promised  in  Jackson's  inaugural  address.  Honestly 
as  Jackson  bad  recommended  the  ideal  theory  to  Monroe,  he 
was  a  thoroughly  practical  man  in  every  day  life,  and  thi» 
had  tauglit  him  other  lessons.  The  camp  was  the  higher 
school  of  life  to  which,  and  through  which,  he  had  gone,  and 
he  involuntarily  carried  the  customs  and  discipline  of  the 
camp  into  his  new  sphere  of  action.  It  was  not  his  desire 
for  revenge,  and  his  unprincipled  ambition  to  rule,  that  sud- 
denly transformed  the  habitual  good  custom  hitherto,  into 
the  evil,  which  to  this  day  is  one  of  the  great  misfortunes  ol 
the  republic.  lie  only  opened  the  gates  which  had  long 
dammed  the  flood ;  he  opened  them  as  the  representative  of 
the  political  tendency  which,  with  his  election,  became  pre- 
dominant, and  he  opened  them  with  that  energy  which  was 
peculiarly  his  own. 

There  had  been  removals  from  ofBce  under  all  former 
presidents,  but  now  the  holders  of  office,  with  divergent  pio- 
litical  views,  began  to  anxiously  ask  themselves,  whether  they 
were  to  belong  to  the  excepted  ones  whom  the  hard  man 
would  not  immediately  deprive  of  their  bread  and  butter.' 

of  the  people,  speaking  through  the  ballot-boxes;  and  at  the  earliest  mo- 
ment after  the  death  of  Mr.  Clinton  (Feb.  11,  1828),  which  explains  th« 
whole  matter,  that  same  party  having  a  majority  in  both  houses  of  Qm 
legislature,  without  a  reference  to  the  people  who  had  a  short  time  before 
declared  in  favor  of  tlie  district  system,  abolished  that  system,  and  estab> 
lished,  by  a  law  of  their  own  making,  the  general- ticket  system,  which  had 
been  recommended  by  Mr.  Clinton,  and  which,  by  their  votes,  they  had 
condemned."  The  Life  and  Times  of  Silas  Wright,  p.  63.  Sargent  a»- 
Bures  us:  "  Had  the  bill  in  the  legislature  of  New  York  passed,  giving  tht 
election  of  the  electors  to  the  people,  the  entire  electoral  vote  of  that  state 
would  have  been  given  (1824)  to  Mr.  Adams."  Public  Men  and  Events, 
I,  p.  67.  New  York,  in  1824,  gave  26  votes  for  Adams,  5  for  Crawford,  4 
for  Clay,  1  for  Jackson.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  VIII,  p.  324.  In  the  year  1828» 
the  vote  of  the  senate  was  20  for  Jackson  and  16  for  Adams.  Ibid.,  X, 
p.  394. 
'  During  Washington's  administration,  nine  persona  were  removed  from 


24    Jackson's  ADMiJSisTBATioif — annexation  of  texas. 

The  person  who  had  entered  the  "civil  service"  of  the 
oountry  had  chosen  a  career  for  life.  Now  the  bestowal  of 
office  became  a  species  of  payment,  and  a  change  of  incum- 
bents after  four,  or,  at  most,  eight  years,  was  to  be  expected  al- 
most with  certainty;  for  others  had  claims  for  remuneration 
to  urge  against  the  new  president.  The  people  were  treated 
to  superficial  talk  on  the  necessity  of  rotation  in  office,  and  the 
real  purpose  of  offices  came  to  be  more  and  more  the  bestowal 
of  them  on  political  agitators  and  their  proteges.  Thus 
«tumbling  blocks  were  placed  in  the  way  of  statesmen,  which, 
however,  only  served  to  pave  a  broad  highway  for  the  pro- 
fessional politicians.  The  destruction  of  stability  in  the  ad- 
ministration began.^  The  whole  machinery  of  government, 
down  to  the  lowest  officials  engaged  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs,  was  subjected  to  the  fluctuations  of  the  polit- 
ical current.  The  great  body  of  citizens  began  to  sink  to 
the  level  of  mere  figurants,  and  the  majority  of  real  com- 


aflBce;  during  John  Adams',  ten;  during  Jeflferson's,  thirty-nine;  during 
Madison's,  five;  during  Monroe's,  nine;  during  John  Quincy  Adams', 
two,  and  in  the  first  year  of  Jackson's  administration,  two  hundred  and 
thirty  officials  of  higher  rank,  and  seven  hundred  and  sixty  post-masters 
and  subordinate  officials.  Works  of  Calhoun,  II,  p,  438;  Niles'  Reg., 
XLIII,  p.  9.  Benton  admits  that  during  the  fitrst  year  six  hundred  and 
ninety  officials  were  dismissed.  Thuty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  160.  Clay  writes 
March  12,  1829,  that  is,  eight  days  after  the  inauguration:  "Among  the 
official  corps  here  there  is  the  greatest  sohcitude  and  apprehension.  The 
members  of  it  feel  something  like  the  inhabitants  of  Cairo  when  the  plague 
breaks  out;  no  one  knows  who  is  next  to  encounter  the  stroke  of  death; 
or,  which  with  many  of  them  is  the  same  thing,  to  be  dismissed  from  of- 
fice. You  have  no  conception  of  the  moral  tyranny  which  prevails  here 
over  those  in  employment."    Priv,  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  225. 

•  Congress  had,  indeed,  as  far  back  as  1820,  taken  an  ominous  step,  in- 
asmuch as  it  had  limited  the  time  of  holding  whole  classes  of  important 
offices,  especially  those  to  the  incumbents  of  which  was  confided  the  collec- 
tion and  disbursement  of  government  money,  to  four  years.  Statutes  at 
Large,  III,  p.  582. 


ADAMS   AND   THE   BEFORM.  25 

batants  grew  more  and  more  wearj  in  their  advocacy  of  ideas 
and  ever  warmer  in  their  strusrwle  for  the  dollar.^ 

When  Adams  was  besieged  to  take  the  initiative  in  the 
ominous  change,  he  said:  "  I  can  justify  the  refusal  to  adopt 
this  policy  only  by  the  steadiness  and  consistency  of  my  ad- 
hesion to  my  own.  If  I  depart  from  this  in  any  one  in- 
stance, I  shall  be  called  upon  by  my  friends  to  do  the  same 
m  many.  An  invidious  and  inquisitorial  scrutiny  into  the 
personal  position  of  public  officers  will  creep  through  the 
whole  Union,  and  the  most  sordid  and  selfish  passions  will 
be  kindled  into  activity  to  distort  the  conduct  and  misrepre- 
sent the  feelings  of  men,  whose  places  may  become  the  price 
of  slander  upon  them."  This  prophecy  was  now  fulfilled  to 
the  letter.  The  capital  of  the  Union  presented  a  revolting 
picture.     Flattery,  servility,  espionage,  tale-bearing  and  in- 

'  Clay  said  in  the  senate,  in  1835 :  "  Bat  I  would  ask  the  Senator  [Wright] 
what  has  been  the  eflfect  of  this  tremendous  power  of  dismission  upon  the 
classes  of  oflScers  to  which  it  has  been  applied?  Upon  the  post-office,  the 
land-oiBce,  and  the  custom  house  ?  They  constitute  so  many  corps  d'armee, 
ready  to  further,  on  all  occasions,  the  executive  views  and  wishes.  They 
take  the  lead  in  primary  assembhes  whenever  it  is  deemed  exjjedient  to 
applaud  or  sound  the  praises  of  the  administration,  or  to  carry  out  its  pur- 
poses in  relation  to  the  succession.  We  are  assured  that  a  large  majority 
of  the  recent  convention  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  to  nominate  the  president's 
successor,  were  office-holders. "    Sp.  II,  p,  272. 

The  present  genei-ation  would  do  well  to  recall  Calhoun's  prophecy  as 
to  what  would  have  to  be  the  upshot  of  all  this:  "  When  it  comes  to  be 
once  understood  that  politics  is  a  game;  that  those  who  are  engaged  in  it 
but  act  a  part;  that  tliey  make  this  or  that  profession,  not  from  honest 
conviction  or  an  intent  to  fulfill  them,  but  as  a  means  of  deluding  the  peo- 
ple; and  tlu'oughout  that  delusion  to  acquire  power  —  when  such  profes- 
sions are  to  be  entirely  forgotten  —  the  people  will  lose  all  confidence  in 
public  men;  all  will  be  regarded  as  mere  jugglers  —  the  honest  and  patri- 
otic as  well  as  the  cunning  and  profligate;  and  the  people  will  becomd 
indifferent  and  passive  to  the  grossest  abuses  qf  power,  on  the  ground  that 
those  whom  tliey  may  elevate  under  whatever  pledges,  instead  of  refomn- 
ing,  will  but  imitate  the  example  of  those  whom  they  have  expelled." 
Calh.'s  Works,  II,  p.  441. 


26    Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  op  texas, 

trigue  thrived  as  tliej  scarcely  ever  had  in  the  most  infa- 
mous European  courts  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies,' only  the  court  varnish  was  wanting.  Jackson  him- 
self, when  not  in  a  rage,  possessed  an  unstudied  dignity 
which  impressed  the  masses;  but,  through  the  genei-al  po- 
litical pressure  at  Washington,  there  ran  a  streak  of  ganuine 
brutality. 

In  congress,  the  new  system  was  proclaimed  and  glorified 
with  surprising  boldness.  Marcy,  of  New  York,  declared  in 
the  senate:  "  It  may  be  that  the  politicians  of  New  York  are 
not  so  fastidious  as  some  gentlemen  are,  as  to  disclosing  the 
principles  on  which  they  act.  They  boldly  preach  what  they 
practice.  AVlien  they  are  contending  for  victorij^  they  avow 
their  intention  of  enjoying  the  fruits  of  it.  If  they  are  de- 
feated, they  ex])ect  to  retire  from  ofiice.  If  they  are  suc- 
cessful, they  claim,  as  a  matter  of  right,  the  advantages  of 
success.  They  see  nothing  wrong  in  the  rule  that  to  the 
victor  (?  sic)  belong  the  spoils  of  the  enemy." 

"  To  the  victor  belong  the  spoils!  " 

From  that  hour,  this  maxim  has  remained  an  inviolable 
princij»le  of  American  politicians,  and  it  is  owing  only  to 
the  astonishing  vitality  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  to  the  altogether  unsurpassed  and  unsurpassable  fav^or 
of  their  natural  conditions,  that  the  state  has  not  succumbed 
under  the  onerous  burden  of  the  curse.     Jackson  was  then 

'  "  We  behold  the  usual  incidents  of  approaching  tyranny.  Tlie  land  is 
filled  with  spies  and  inforniei-s,  and  detraction  and  denunciation  are  the 
orders  of  tlie  day.  People,  especially  official  incumbents  in  this  place,  no 
longer  <lare  speak  in  the  fearless  tones  of  manly  freemen,  but  in  the  cau- 
tious wliispsra  of  trembhng  slaves.  Tlie  premonitoiy  symptoms  of  des- 
potism are  upon  us;  and  if  congress  does  not  apply  an  instantaneous  and 
efl'ectuil  remedy,  tiie  fatal  collapse  will  soon  come  on,  and  we  shall  die  — 
ignobly  dieJ  base,  mean,  and  abject  slaves  —  the  scorn  and  contempt  of 
mankind  —  uupitied,  unwept,  unmoumed!"     Sp.  of  H.  Clay,  II,  p.  230. 


Jackson's  OABmirr.  •  27 

aiid  aftenvarcls,  and,  more  tlian  justly,  made  rcsponsiMe  for 
it.  Only  secondary,  and  in  part  even  accidental  circum- 
stances, permitted  the  tendency  which  lay  in  the  conditions 
of  the  country  and  in  its  institutions  thus  snddenly  to  mani- 
fest itself.  It  is,  however,  true  that  Jackson  carried  the 
element  of  personality  into  it  to  an  extent  not  possible  for 
later  presidents.  In  place  of  the  personal  kindly  disposition 
of  the  president,  which  was  now  the  governin*^  consideration, 
came  the  interest  of  party,  that  is,  of  pai'ty  leaders,  great  and 
small. 

In  the  construction  of  his  cabinet,  Jackson  himself  paid 
little  attention  to  party;  and,  back  of  the  cabinet,  there  still 
stood  the  "  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  which  always  possessed  undue 
power,  and  frequently  exercised  the  deciding  influence  in  the 
most  important  questions.  Van  Buren  was  the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  cabinet  who,  in  a  certain  sense,  enjoyed  a  national 
reputation;  and  he  owed  his  selection  less  to  his  distin- 
guished position  in  the  party  than  to  his  great  share  in 
Jackson's  success.  The  most  important  member  after  him 
was  lierrien,  the  attorney  general.  Yet  his  reputation  as  a 
jurist  was  not  such  that,  had  the  old  practice  been  in  vogue, 
Wirt  would  have  been  obliged  to  vacate  for  him  the  place 
which  he  had  tilled  for  twelve  years  with  the  greatest  dis- 
tinction. The  chief  merit  of  the  remaining  men»bers  of 
the  cabinet  was  their  common  enmity  to  Henry  Clay.  The 
postmaster  general,  Barry,  could,  in  addition  to  this,  boast 
that,  from  being  an  intimate  friend  of  Clay,  he  had  become 
one  of  his  enemies.  Branch,  the  secretary  of  the  navy,  was 
an  indilferent  personage;  he  now  obtained  a  place  in  the 
cabinet,  just  as  he  had  previously,  on  account  of  his  wealth 
and  of  his  highly  respectable  social  position,  obtaincil  the 
governoi'ship  of  Norih  Carolina  and  a  seat  in  the  senate  of 
the  Union.  Ingham,  of  Pennsylvania,  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  a  clever  business  man,  had  long  been  a  useful  mem- 


28       JACKSON'b  administration ANNEXATION  OP  TEXAS. 

ber  of  conjrress.  He  had  recommended  himself  to  Jackson 
chiefly  by  tlie  part  he  played  in  producing  the  cry  about  the 
pretended  "  trade  "  between  Clay  and  Adams.  The  secretary 
of  war,  Eaton,  was,  indeed,  a  United  States  senator,  but  had 
never  played  an  important  political  part.  lie  was  chosen  as 
a  boon  companion  from  Tennessee,  and  out  of  gratitude  for 
his  services  in  bringing  the  electoral  campaign  to  a  happy 
issue. 

Another,  and  an  exceedingly  piquant  circumstance,  which 
was  attended  by  important  political  consequences,  gave  Eaton 
a  further  claim  on  Jackson's  favor.  Some  months  before 
the  inauguration,  Eaton  had,  after  previous  consultation  with 
Jackson,  married  a  certain  Mrs.  Timberlake,  with  whom, 
according  to  the  reports  circulated  and  universally  credited 
in  Washington,  he  had,  for  some  time,  maintained  unlawful 
intercourse.  Jackson's  chivalrous  nature  led  him,  on  every 
occasion,  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  weaker  sex.  But  accu- 
sations of  this  kind  especially  provoked  him  to  contradiction, 
for  they  had  been  made  against  himself  also  and  his  wife, 
to  whom  he  clung  with  touching  devotedness,  and  were 
renewed  during  the  electoral  campaign.  It  seems  as  if  the 
deep  acrimony  which  this  had  generated  within  him  made 
it  seem  to  him  to  be  a  duty  towards  the  good  genius  of  his 
life,  who  had  died  in  the  meantime,  to  restore  the  good 
name  of  Mrs.  Eaton.  Washington  society,  and  especially 
the  society  of  other  members  of  the  cabinet  and  their  fami- 
lies, had  to  be  comjjelled  to  look  upon  Mrs.  Eaton  as  entitled 
to  all  the  rights  of  their  circle,  and  to  recognize  her  to  be 
entitled  to  them.  But  the  lady  rulers  of  Washington  society 
were  determined  not  to  permit  the  disreputable  woman  to 
be  forced  upon  them.  The  president  was  the  cau%e  of  ex- 
ceedingly angry  scenes  with  the  wives  of  foreign  ambassa- 
dors; and  with  the  married  members  of  the  cabinet,  whose 
families  were  in  Washington,  he  soon  found  himself  engaged 


DEFECTS   OF   JACKSON's   CHARACTER.  29 

ia  an  open  and  violent  feud  brought  about  by  the  question. 
Jackson  was  not  used  to  meeting  with  an  energy  equal  to 
his  own.  Tlie  contest,  on  this  account,  soon  assumed  a  very 
malignant  character,  and  finally  became  the  real  provocation 
to  the  complete  reorganization  of  the  cabinet  —  a  reorgan- 
ization which  at  first  was  not  at  all  understood  outside  of 
Washington. 

In  this  tragico-comic  interlnde  which  is  entirely  sui  gene- 
ric in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  every  one  of  Jack- 
son's characteristic  qualities,  good  and  bad,  great  and  small, 
may  be  recognized.  Opposition  of  any  kind  was  insupport- 
able to  him.  lie  was  always  too  certain  of  the  goodness  of 
his  cause,  especially  when  his  feelings  came  into  play,  to 
believe,  much  less  to  be  able  to  understand,  that  the  opposi- 
tion arose  from  honest  conviction.  In  political  life,  as  in 
the  field,  he  knew  only  friends  and  foes,  and  he  was,  there- 
fore, ruthless  in  his  battles  with  his  enemies.  But  he  was 
just  as  unreserved  in  his  devotion  to  his  friends.  He  made 
their  cause  his  own  completely.  Personal  questions  which 
most  frequently  gave  him  offense,  he  grasped  with  such  in- 
tensity that  tliey  became  the  real  ones  at  issue  to  him.  And 
just  as  the  limits  of  what  was  personal  to  himself  and  the 
real  question  at  issue  faded  one  into  the  other,  so  also  did 
the  limits  between  political  life  and  civil  life.  In  additio 
to  this,  he  was  wanting  in  the  ability  to  estimate  the  relati 
importance  of  different  questions.  He  could  not  distinguish  X 
the  small  from  the  great,  because  he  gave  his  entire  thought 
and  will  to  every  task;  and  he,  therefore,  began  nothing  new 
until  he  had  carried  out  his  previous  undertaking.  His  re- 
solves were  quickly  made,  and  without  any  weighing  of  the  , 
possible  consequences  to  his  own  person.  But  neither  his  / 
formal  education  nor  the  schooling  which  life  had  given 
him,  made  him  capable  of  objective  examination  and  con- 
sideration.    His  own  person,  that  is,  his  personal  feeling, 


loa 

ive\ 


30    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

assumption  and  belief  were  the  starting  point  and  the  rally- 
ing point  of  all  his  deliberation,  thought  and  action  the  one 
and  the  other  subjectivity  in  the  highest  power.  To  shake 
an  opinion  which  he  had  once  formed,  by  argument,  or  even 
to  modify  it,  was,  therefore,  almost  impossible;  but  until 
he  liad  formed  a  fixed  opinion,  he  was  like  wax  in  skillful 
hands.  This  was  all  the  more  dangerous,  since  he  conld  not 
at  all  distinguish  between  his  person  and  his  office.  lie  not 
only  made  use,  on  a  most  extensive  scale,  of  his  ofiicial  posi- 
tion in  extra-official  affairs,  l)ecause  he,  in  good  faith,  dragged 
his  office  into  that  which  concerned  only  his  own  person; 
but,  what  was  much  more  far-reaching  in  its  consequences, 
he  marked  out  the  boundaries  of  the  rights  of  the  office  in 
accordance  with  his  own  personal  judgment  and  the  wants 
of  the  moment,  because  he  gave  the  duties  of  the  office  an 
improperly  wide  extension,  and  was  conscious  that  he  desired 
to  fulfill  them  honestly.  Since  Louis  XIY,  the  maxim,  Vetat 
c'est  vioi,  has  scarcely  found,  a  second  time,  so  ingenuous 
and  complete  an  expression  as  in  Andrew  Jackson.  The 
only  difference  is,  that  it  was  translated  from  the  language 
of  monarchy  into  the  language  of  republicanism. 

That  such  a  phenomenon  was  possible  in  the  republic, 
and  that,  at  the  same  time,  its  political  and  social-political 
development  kept  on  its  course  as  undisturbed  and  con- 
sistently as  if  this  singular  man  had  never  sat  in  the  presi- 
dential chair,  is  easy  of  explanation.  AVashington  was  called 
the  embodiment  of  the  best  traits  of  the  American  national 
character,  and  Jackson  was  the  embodiment  of  all  its  typical 
traits.  He  was  unquestionably  a  man  of  great  parts,  but  he 
was  at  the  same  time  entirely  incapable  of  rising,  in  any  re- 
spect, to  the  height  of  a  great  man,  because  the  disfavor  of 
circumstances  during  the  years  that  he  was  capable  of  be- 
Ang  educated  had  kept  him  in  the  ingenuous  coarseness  of 
the  child  of  nature.     Spite  of  the  frightful  influence,  in  the 


THE  BANK-CONTROVEBST.  31 

real  sense  of  the  expression,  whicli  he  exercised  dnring  the 
eight  years  of  his  presidency,  he  neither  pointed  out  nor 
opened  new  ways  to  his  people  by  the  superiority  of  his 
mind,  but  only  dragged  them  more  rapidly  onward  on  the 
road  they  had  long  been  traveling,  by  the  demoniacal  power 
of  his  will.  The  supporters  of  his  policy  were  the  instincts 
of  tlie  masses;  the  sum  and  substance  of  it,  the  satisfaction 
of  those  instincts.  The  power  of  his  will  gave  it  absolute 
sway. 

These  last  lines  give  the  key  to  the  right  understanding 
of  the  political  bearing  of  the  bank-controversy,  which  was 
mainly  the  occasion  of  so  rude  a  development  of  personal  rule 
that  we  may  very  properly  speak  of  the  reign  of  Andrew 
Jackson.*  This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  general  polit- 
ical and  purely  economic  question,  whether  the  bank  an- 
swered equitable  demands  and  did  not  abuse  the  privileges 
granted  it.  It  is  sufficient  to  indicate  that  the  controversy 
was  not,  as  the  friends  of  the  bank  were  wont  to  assert,  an 
entirely  baseless  one.  Tlie  bank  question  had,  indeed,  long 
ceased  to  be  a  party  question,  and  men  had  learned  to  ap- 
preciate its  advantages;  but  the  masses  of  people  continued 
to  be  filled  with  distrust  of  the  immense  power  of  its  cap- 
ital.^ It  is  probable,  however,  that  this  distrust  would  have 
remained  latent  until  such  time  as  the  bank  should  apply  for 
an  extension  of  its  franchise,  had  not  Jackson  made  the 
question  sooner  the  order  of  the  day.  Wliat  it  was  that  first 
provoked  him  to  this,  it  is  not  possible  to  determine  defi- 
nitely.    Tlie  tradition  of  the  democratic  party,  to  which  Ban- 

'  Even  Story,  who  was  a  moderate  man  and  far  removed  from  partisan- 
ship, writes:  "And  I  confess  that  I  feel  humiliated  at  the  truth,  which 
cannot  be  disguised,  that  though  we  live  under  the  form  of  a  repubUc,  we 
are  in  fact  under  the  rule  of  a  single  man."  Life  and  Letters  of  J.  Story, 
II,  p.  154. 

*  The  capital  of  the  bank  amounted  to  135,000,000. 


32    Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

croft  also  has  lent  the  weight  of  his  name,*  is,  in  my  opinion, 
not  well  founded.  Jackson  did  not  come  to  Washington 
resolved  to  wipe  out  the  bank.^  He  had  never  been  favora- 
bly inclined  towards  it,  but,  like  the  rest  of  its  opponents,  he 
considei*ed  it  a  fact  to  which  he  had  to  be  reconciled.  He 
had  even  recommended  the  creation  of  a  branch  office  in 
Pensacola,  and  again  in  1828,  the  appointment  of  certain 
persons  to  places  in  the  branch  office  at  Nashville.  During 
the  first  months  of  his  administration,  the  relation  of  the 
bank  to  the  administration  continued  to  be  what  it  had  been 
under  former  presidents.  There  are  several  letters  of  this 
period  known,  in. which  the  secretary  of  finance  expresses 
his  acknowledgments  for  the  manner  in  which  the  bank  com- 
plied with  the  wishes  of  the  administration.  The  first  de- 
monstrable provocation  of  ill  temper  was  afforded  by  a 
matter  unimportant  in  itself,  the  beginning  of  which  dates 
back  to  July,  1829. 

Levi  Woodbury,  senator  from  New  Hampshire,  and  one 
of  Jackson's  most  radical  partisans,  laid  charges,  in  a  letter 
of  the  27th  of  June,  before  the  secretary  of  the  treasurj'^, 
against  Jeremiah  Mason,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  ju- 
rists of  New  England,  as  president  of  the  branch  bank  at 

'  In  a  eulogy  on  Jackson,  delivered  in  Washington. 

•  In  opposition  to  this,  indeed,  may  be  adduced  Jackson's  own  assurance 
in  the  so-called  "paper,  read  to  the  cabinet  on  the  18th  of  September, 
1833,"  that  even  at  the  time  that  he  entered  on  the  duties  of  the  presi- 
dency, his  "  convictions  of  the  dangerous  tendencies  of  the  bank  were  so 
overpowering."  Niles,  XLV,  p.  73.  But  such  a  declaration  of  a  party  in 
a  manifesto,  which  marks  the  culminating  point  of  the  struggle,  could 
have  little  weight  attached  to  it,  even  if  the  established  facts  might  not 
be  made  to  constitute  so  strong  a  presumptive  proof  against  it.  There  is, 
however,  no  need  of  assuming  that  Jackson  told  an  absolute  untruth. 
The  attitude  he  assumed  in  September,  1833,  towards  the  question,  made 
it,  considering  his  character  and  his  whole  mode  of  thought,  seem  self- 
evident  to  him  that  he  must  necessarily  have  always  thought  so. 


COMPLAINTS   AGAINST   MASON.  33 

Portsmouth.  The  letter  calls  attention  to  Mason's  "politi 
cal  character,"  and  that  the  hint  might  certainly  not  be  mis- 
understood or  remain  unheeded,  Woodbury  also  points  to 
the  fact  that  Mason  was  a  "  particular  friend  of  Webster." 
In  a  letter  of  the  same  date  to  Nicholas  Biddle,  the  president 
of  the  bank,  Woodbury  lays  stress  on  the  fact,  notwithstand- 
ing, that  all  complaints  against  Mason  proceeded  "  exclu- 
sively from  his  [Mason's]  political  friends."  Both  letters 
alleged  that  the  complaints  were  universal,  both  among  the 
merchants  and  among  the  "  people  in  the  interior,"  and  the 
one  to  Ingham  closed  with  the  request  that  he  would  exert 
his  "  influence  with  the  mother  bank "  to  have  Mason  re- 
moved. Thereupon,,  Ingham,  on  the  11th  of  July,  wrote  to 
Biddle,  remarking  that  complaints  of  a  "similar  kind"  had 
been  already  made  from  other  quarters,  and  urging  him  to 
afford  efficient  redress.  Biddle,  in  his  answer,  promised  to 
cause  an  investigation,  but  demonstrated  then  and  there  the 
complete  injustice  of  many  of  Woodbury's  assertions,  which 
contained  malicious  insinuations  against  Mason  and  against 
the  bank. 

If  there  had  been  really  complaints  of  a  material  kind 
only  against  Mason,  the  affair  would  properly  have  stopped 
here  until  the  promised  investigation  had  taken  place.  But 
back  of  Woodbury  and  the  secretary  of  finance  stood  another 
personage.  Isaac  Hill,  at  the  time  an  employe  of  the  treas- 
ury office,  and  soon  one  of  the  most  dreaded  powers  behind 
the  throne,  held  the  wires  in  his  hand  behind  the  curtain; 
and  his  only  aim  was,  not  simply  to  scatter  seeds  of  evil  and 
leave  their  germination  to  chance;  he  wanted  to  attain  at 
the  moment  an  entirely  definite  and  plain  object. 

"About  sixty  of  the  most  respectable  members  of  the 
legislature  of  New  Hampshire"  had  petitioned  for  a  change 
of  the  board  of  directors  of  the  branch  bank,  and,  in  addi- 
tion to  this,  had  taken  the  trouble  to  recommend  other 


34    Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

"suitable  persons."  The  conductors  of  the  mother  bank 
must  have  badly  read  the  signs  of  the  times,  if  they  did  not 
now  perceive  at  what  point  those  hankering  after  their  pat- 
ronage wanted  to  place  the  lever.  Hill,  however,  removed 
all  doubt  for  them  on  this  matter.  On  the  17th  of  July,  he 
addressed  a  letter,  to  which  he  subscribed  his  official  signa- 
ture, to  two  gentlemen  in  Philadelphia,  who  communicated 
its  contents  to  Biddle.  In  this  letter  we  read:  "  The  friends 
of  General  Jackson  in  Kew  Hampshire  have  had  but  too 
much  reason  to  complain  of  the  management  of  the  branch 
at  Portsmouth.  All  that  they  now  ask  is,  that  this  institution 
in  that  state  may  not  continue  to  be  an  engine  of  political 
oppression  by  any  party."  ^ 

The  charge  did  not  harmonize  well  with  Woodbury's 
assurance  that  Mason's  political  friends  were  the  first  and 
loudest  in  their  complaints.  But  the  maxim  of  such  people 
in  following  out  such  plans  is  always:  hearts  are  trumps, 
but  a  club  takes  the  trick,  if  we  play  it.  The  watchword 
which  Hill  here  gave  remained  unchanged  to  the  end  of  the 
contest.  The  bank  unquestionably  assumed  later  a  political 
attitude;  that  is,  it  sought  to  influence  politics.  But  even 
if  Jackson  could  say,  with  reason,  that  it  was  not  entitled  to 
defend  its  life  against  the  administration,  it  must  have  been 
self-evident,  even  to  a  child,  that  it  would,  under  all  circum- 
stances, defend  itself,  right  or  wrong.  And  it  matters  not 
how  much  or  how  little  just  blame  it  may  deserve  on  this 
account,  the  history  of  the  quarrel  about  the  Portsmouth 
branch  bank  justifies,  so  far  as  the  beginning  of  the  bank 
struggle  is  concerned,  Calhoun's  assertion  that  the  "  real 
offense  of  the  bank  is  not  that  it  has  intermeddled  in  politics, 
but  that  it  would  not  intermeddle  on  the  side  of  power."  ^ 

'See  the  correspondence  relating  to  the  Portsmouth  branch  bank  in 
NUes,  XLII,  pp.  289-292,  315,  316.  Parton,  Life  of  A.  Jackson,  III,  p. 
260  et  seq.,  adds  some  items  not  to  be  found  in  Niles. 

'Calh.'8  Works,  II,  p.  323. 


THE   PENSION  AGENOT.  85 

In  the  beginning  of  August,  the  secretary  of  war  also 
interfered  in  the  matter,  inasmuch  as  he  directed  Mason  to 
transfer  the  pension  agency  from  Portsmouth  to  Concord. 
Mason  had  abeady,  on  the  Slst  of  July,  informed  Biddle 
that  Hill,  who,  up  to  the  time  of  his  appointment  to  a  place 
in  the  treasury  office,  had  been  president  of  the  small  bank 
in  question  in  Concord,  was  laboring  to  effect  this  transfw 
of  the  pension  agency.  Mason,  as  well  as  the  mother  bank, 
refused  to  comply  with  Eaton's  demand,  because  the  law 
did  not  empower  him  to  do  so.     The  bank  was  the  victor. 

In  the  meantime,  the  correspondence  between  the  mother 
bank  and  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  continued,  and  had 
covered  the  general  relation  of  the  bank  to  the  administra- 
tion. Ingham  expressed  himself  on  the  subject  of  the  "  con- 
trol" which  became  the  administration,  in  such  a  manner 
that  one  did  not  need  to  be  altogether  too  distrustful  in  order 
to  see  in  it,  with  Biddle,  the  assertion  of  a  claim  to  exercise 
an  influence  "  on  the  election  and  on  removal  from  office." 
Ingham,  indeed,  denied  very  decidedly  any  such  intention. 
That  he  did  not  know  how  Hill  had  shuffled  the  cards  which 
had  been  given  him  to  play  from,  seems  pretty  certain.  But 
if  the  thought  of  making  the  bank  the  vassal  of  the  adminis- 
tration was  far  from  his  mind,  then  not  only  are  certain  of 
his  expressions  which  were  evidently  intended  to  be  signifi- 
cant hints  entirely  meaningless,  but  the  menaces  also  to 
which  he  resorted  totally  inexplicable.^  Now  the  declara- 
tions of  the  bank  that  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  politics  and 
that  it  did  not  wish  to  have  anything  to  do  with  them,  were 
in  harmony  with  the  facts  of  the  case;  and  with  any  other 
offense  it  was  not  even  charged. 

The  bank  remained  the  victor,  both  as  against  the  secre- 

•  In  his  letter  of  the  8th  of  October,  the  threat  of  withdrawing  the  fed- 
eral deposits  is  emphatically  expressed. 


3fi     Jackson's  admuhsteation  —  annexation  of  texa8. 

tary  of  the  treasury  and  the  secretary  of  war;  and  it  was  in 
the  right  as  opposed  to  both.  But  it  cannot  be  said,  how- 
ever, tliat  it  had  acted  wisely.  Even  if  the  supposition  that 
this  wrangle  gave  Jackson  the  first  impulse  to  his  declara- 
tion of  war  against  it  be  unfounded,  this  much  is  certain, 
that  the  arrogant  tone  in  which  Biddle  repelled  all  guardian- 
ship of  the  administration,  except  that  expressly  granted  by 
law,  hit  him  on  his  sorest  spot.  But  Ingham  was  right  iu 
his  view,  that  the  bank  very  much  over-estimated  its  power, 
it  mattered  not  how  great  that  power  might  be,  if  it  supposed 
it  could  withstand  a  struggle  with  the  administration. 

Nothing  was  known  of .  these  differences  in  wider  circles, 
or  else  no  attention  was  paid  to  them.  The  declaration  of 
the  first  annual  message,  that  the  president  could  "  not  too 
soon  present  to  the  deliberate  consideration  of  the  legisla- 
ture and  the  people,"  the  petition  which  was  to  be  expected, 
asking  for  a  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the  bank,  was  a  sur- 
prise to  the  general  public.  By  what  spirit  the  presenting 
of  this  declaration  to  the  people  was  dictated,  is  shown  by 
the  concluding  sentence  of  the  short  paragraph:  "  Both  the 
constitutionality  and  the  expediency  of  the  law  creating  this 
bank  are  questioned  by  a  large  portion  of  our  fellow  citizens, 
and  it  must  be  admitted  by  all,  that  it  has  failed  in  the  great 
end  of  establishing  a  uniform  and  sound  currency."  If  the 
meaning  of  this  was  that  Jackson  himself  considered  the 
bank  unconstitutional,  still  this  was  true  only  of  this  bank 
and  not  of  a  bank  in  general.  The  disguised  attack  on  the 
existing  bank  he  followed  with  the  conditional  proposition 
to  substitute  for  it  "  a  national  one,  founded  upon  the  credit 
of  the  government  and  its  revenues."  Whether  it  was  in- 
tended to  place  such  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of  the  presi- 
dent in  case  the  new  system  governing  the  bestowal  of  office 
should  be  continued,  is  a  question,  the  answer  to  which  must 


BLUNDEE   OF   THE   BANK.  37 

be  sought  in  the  history  of  Jackson's  administration,  and 
especially  in  that  of  the  bank  controversy. 

If  any  doubt  whatever  could  have  existed  that  Jackson 
had  desired  to  declare  war  on  the  bank,  it  mnst  have  been 
remov^ed  by  the  repetition  of  that  recommendation  in  the 
two  following  annual  messages.*  But  no  one  yet  dreamt  of 
a  struggle  for  life  or  death.  It  came  to  this  only  through  a 
blunder  made  by  the  bank. 

In  one  point,  Jackson  was  apparently  true  to  the  pro- 
gramme which  he  had  drawn  up  on  the  occasion  of  his 
resignation  as  a  senator  of  the  United  States.  In  his 
first  message,  he  recommended  that  the  reeligibility 
of  the  president  should  be  done  away  with  by  an  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution;  and  he  repeated  the  recom- 
mendation in  all  his  succeeding  messages.  But  the  pol- 
iticians rightly  assumed  that  that  would  not  prevent  him- 
self from  accepting  a  second  election.'^  And  it  would  have 
been  a  hard  thing  for  them  to  find  a  person  more  accept- 

'Ibid.,  IT,  pp.  849,  861.  In  his  second  annual  message  lie  says  still  more 
definitely  that  he  objected  to  the  bank  only  "  as  at  present  organized,"  and 
that  "  the  advantages  afforded  by  the  present  bank  "  might  be  secured  by 
a  government  bank,  which  was  only  a  "branch  of  the  treasury  depart- 
ment." 

» Webster  writes,  April  18,  1830,  to  Clay:  "The  president  means  to  be 
re-elected.  He  has  meant  so  all  along.  Seeing  this.  Van  Buren  was  en- 
deavoring to  make  a  merit  of  persuading  him  to  do  so,  on  the  ground  of 
its  being  necessary  to  keep  the  party  together."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay, 
p.  259.  As  early  as  the  27th  of  February,  1830,  he  had  written  to  Mason 
that  Calhoun  and  Van  Buren  overlooked  "  the  probabihty  that  General 
Jackson  will  run  again,  and  that  that  is  his  present  purpose  I  am  quite 
sure."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  D.  Webster,  I,  p.  488.  Adams  shared  this  view, 
but  as  to  the  rest,  saw  better.  He  writes,  March  28,  1828,  in  his  diary: 
"  The  vices  of  his  administration  are  not  such  as  affect  the  popular  feel- 
ing. He  will  lose  none  of  his  popularity,  imless  he  should  do  something 
to  raise  a  blister  upon  popular  sentiment;  and  of  that  there  is  no  present 
prospect.  If  he  Uves,  therefore,  and  nothing  external  should  happen  to 
rouse  new  parties,  he  may  be  re-elected,  not  only  once,  but  twice  or  thrice." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  VIII,  p.  210. 


38    Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  op  texas. 

able  to  thera,  or  one  whom  there  was  a  better  prospect  of 
electing. 

In  the  latter  respect,  indeed,  the  leaders  of  the  national 
republicans  were  of  a  very  different  mind.  Thej  confidently 
hoped  for  victory  to  the  last,*  partly  because  they  assumed 
that  the  masses  were  of  their  own  way  of  thinking  politi- 
cally, whereas  they  (the  masses)  were  guided  entirely  by 
their  political  instincts;  partly  because  they  under-estimated 
the  influence  which. the  professional  politicians  had  already 
secured  for  themselves,  by  skillful  management,  in  the  de- 
termination of  questions  of  this  kind,  precisely. 

In  the  place  of  the  dethroned  "  King  Caucus,"  another 
machine  had  to  be  put  —  one  which,  by  making  known  the 
"  people's  will,"  exempted  the  electors  from  their  constitu- 
tional duty  to  elect  the  man  president  who,  in  their  judg- 
raent,  was  the  fittest  for  the  position.  From  the  "Kitchen 
Cabinet "  seems  to  have  come  the  first  proposition  to  make 
the  "  national  conventions,"  which  are  customary  even  to  the 
present  day  —  that  is,  assemblages  made  up  of  party  dele- 
gates, chosen  without  any  legal  control  whatever,  the  ex- 

•Clay,  who,  it  was  well  known,  was  the  candidate  of  the  national  re- 
publicans, writes,  April  24, 1830,  to  Fr.  Brooke:  *'  The  whole  case  present* 
one  encouraging  view.  Jackson  has  lost,  is  losing,  and  must  continue  tc 
lose;"  and  on  the  23d  of  July,  1830,  to  J.  S.  Johnston:  '*  I  think  we  are 
authorized,  from  all  that  is  now  before  us,  to  anticipate  confidently  Gen« 
eral  Jackson's  defeat;"  and  again,  on  the  21st  of  February,  to  Fr.  Brooke; 
*'  Everything  is  going  on  well.  Van  Buren,  old  Hickory,  and  the  whole 
crew,  will,  I  think,  in  due  time,  be  gotten  rid  of."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H. 
Clay,  pp.  264,  307,  326.  In  the  address  of  the  national  republican  conven- 
tion of  Baltimore  we  read:  "  Without  meaning  to  encourage  an  undue 
confidence,  which  would  only  generate  inactivity,  we  beUeve  that,  with 
proper  exertion,  the  success  of  the  good  cause  is  beyond  the  possibihty  of 
doubt.  The  present  administration  has  for  some  time  past  been  justly  dis- 
credited in  pubUc  opinion  —  General  Jackson  has  been  gradually  losing, 
ever  since  the  commencement  of  his  official  term,  the  popularity  with  which 
he  entered  it."  Niles,  XLI,  p.  312. 
,    ■'/' 


^    r;    -r  , 


THE  NATIONAL  KEPUBLI0AN8.  89 

pouents  of  the  "  will  of  the  people."  ^  What  prospects  the 
army  of  office  holders  and  office  seekers,  who  were  ever  ready 
for  fiofht,  had  to  influence  the  election  to  this  convention, 
and  how  powerful  a  pressure  the  "  nominations  "  of  the  con- 
ventions would  necessarily  exert  on  the  party,  or  on  the 
electors  chosen  by  the  party,  we  need  not  enter  into  any 
minute  discussion  of  here.' 

Jackson,  indeed,  would  have  needed  no  artificial  help  to- 
wards being  again  proposed;  but,  as  it  was  offered,  his  op- 
ponents should  have  been  doubly  cautious  in  going  to  work 
to  prepare  their  programme.  Instead  of  confining  themselves 
to  a  watchful  defensive,  however,  and  permitting  him  to  run 
the  risks  of  taking  the  initiative,  they  suddenly  took  the 
offensive,  misled  by  an  over-estimation  of  their  own  strength 
and  by  the  impatience  of  Clay's  ambition. 

In  the  beginning  of  December,  1831,  that  is,  nearly  a  year 
before  the  choice  of  electors,  the  national  republicans  opened 
the  electoral  campaign  with  a  national  convention  held  at 
Baltimore.  Clay  was  unanimously  nominated  their  presi- 
dential candidate.  vA.n  address  to  the  people  furnished,  in 
the  negative  form  of  a  criticism  of  the  then  administration, 
the  party's  programme."^  Much  might  have  been  added  to 
it;  much  that  was  said  might  have  found  more  severe  ex- 
pression and  the  criticism  stiU  have  been  justified;  butpoKt- 

•  See  the  letter  of  Major  Lewis  to  Amos  Kendall,  of  the  25th  of  May, 
1831,  reproduced  in  Part»n's  Life  of  A.  Jackson,  III,  pp.  382, 383.  In  July 
of  the  same  yeax,  a  "  convention  "  of  the  republican  members  of  the  legis- 
latare  of  New  Hampshire,  at  the  suggestion  of  Kendall  and  of  J.  Hill, 
made  the  formal  proposition  that  a  national  convention  should  be  held, 
with  the  further  proposition  that  each  state  should  send  as  many  dele- 
gates to  it  as  it  was  entitled  to  electoral  votes. 

* "  The  bank,  admitting  all  that  is  said  to  be  true,  has  not,  in  our  opinion, 
expended  so  much  money  in  defending  herself,  as  has  been  expended  at  the 
late  election  held  in  the  city  of  New  York,  alone,  by  persons  holding  office* 
there,  that  the  'spoils  of  victory'  may  be  made  to  remain  with  them." 
April,  1834.    Nilea,  XLVI,  p.  97. 


40      JAOKSOn's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

ical  wisdom  demanded  a  more  moderate  tone.  The  peculiar 
manner  in  which  the  masses  considered  Jackson  their  direct 
representative,  caused  them  to  look  upon  the  personal  attacks 
on  him  as  an  animadversion  on  themselves,  and  they  seized 
with  satisfaction  the  opportunity  to  demonstrate  their  "  sov- 
ereignty "  once  more,  and  in  a  more  striking  manner. 

In  reference  to  the  bank,  the  address  assumed  a  much  more 
decided  position  than  was  absolutely  called,  for  by  the  steps 
which  Jackson  had  thus  far  taken  against  it.  Extravagant 
praise  was  showered  on  the  bank,  and  it  was  denied  that  the 
attacks  of  the  president  had  even  the  least  semblance  of  reason. 
Between  the  lines  people  could  read  that  the  explanation  of 
the  address  was  to  be  found  in  Jackson's  own  bank-project, 
which  amounted  to  a  paper-money  machine  for  the  govern- 
ment. Certain  it  was,  however,  that  the  annihilation  of  the 
bank,  if  Jackson  was  elected  again,  was  a  matter  resolved 
upon  and  settled.^  The  conclusion  was  easily  di-awn:  who- 
ever wishes  to  save  the  bank  must  vote  for  Clay. 

The  national  republicans,  therefore,  chose  as  their  watch- 
word for  the  campaign:  "The  bank  or  Jackson!"  and  they 
endeavored  to  force  the  president  to  adopt  the  same,  by  in- 
ducing the  bank  to  petition  now  for  the  renewal  of  its  char- 
ter.'^ When  experience  had  taught  them  the  folly  of  this 
step,  they  denied  all  design, and  pretended  that,  without  any 
mental  reservation,  they  only  obeyed  the  summons  contained 
in  the  first  annual  message.  Since  they,  by  this  means,  suc- 
ceeded in  making  the  obscurity  which  prevailed  in  the  public 
judgment  on  the  dark  course  of  the  struggle  greater,  the  allu- 
sion to  the  address  of  the  Baltimore  convention,  which  was  for 
the  most  part  overlooked,  seemed  necessary.  Together  with 
many  others,  Clay  himself  has  borne  witness  to  the  fact, 

'Niles,  XLI,  p.  310. 

•The  petition  was  laid  before  the  senate  on  the  9th  of  January,  1832, 
by  Dallas.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,  pp.  357,  368. 


MONEY   POWER  OF  THE  BASK.  41 

that  Jackson  did  not  wish  to  see  the  question  brought  op  at 
this  session,  but  that  the  "  responsibility  of  a  decision  "  was 
forced  upon  him  bj  the  friends  of  the  bank.^ 

Not  onlj  Jackson  personally  had  to  complain  of  this 
manoeuvre.  The  bank  and  its  friends  might  appeal  later,  as 
much  as  they  Uked,  to  the  right  of  self-defense,  when  Jackson 
forged  a  powerful  weapon  against  them  out  of  the  thousands 
of  doUars  they  had  spent  for  purposes  of  political  agitation. 
With  its  application  before  a  presidential  election,  about 
live  years  before  the  expiration  of  its  charter,  and  in  a 
congress  the  members  of  which  had  been  elected  without 
any  reference  whatever  to  this  question,  the  bank  carried  its 
money  power  into  the  political  arena  in  a  manner  which 
could  not  be  justified  fi'om  any  point  of  view.  By  means  of 
this  fact,  it  exercised  on  a  great  number  of  citizens,  especially 
in  the  money-poor  west,  a  pressure  which  awakened  to  an 
extent  greater  than  ever  before  the  political  alarms  in  relation 
to  an  institution  of  the  kind,  which  had  been  lulled  to  sleep 
by  time.  These  were  of  more  importance  in  the  development 
and  in  the  issue  of  the  struggle  than  the  economic  side  of 
the  question,'*     But  the  really  decisive  element  was  that 

'  "The  executive  is  playing  a  deep  game  to  avoid,  at  this  session,  the  re- 
sponsibility of  any  decision  on  the  bank  question.  It  is  not  yet  ascertained 
whether  the  bank,  by  forbearing  to  apply  for  a  renewal  of  their  charter, 
will  or  will  not  conform  to  the  wishes  of  the  president  I  think  they  will 
act  very  unwisely  if  they  do  not  apply."  H.  Clay  to  Fr.  Brooke.  Dec  25, 
1831.    Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  322. 

'J.  M.  Ludlow  says,  in  a  review  of  the  first  volume  of  this  work: 
'*  Yet  surely  the  question  involved  in  it  [Jackson's  struggle  with  the  TJ.  S. 
Bank],  was  one  of  the  gravest  constitutional  nature,  and  big  with  issues 
affecting  the  whole  future  of  the  United  States,  viz.,  whether  a  money- 
power  of  national  dimensions  should  be  allowed  to  subsist  which  took  part 
hi  poUtical  warfare,  set  at  nought  government  control,  and  seized  the  divi- 
dends on  the  public  stock.  How  momentous  such  a  danger  is  in  a  republic, 
from  the  want  of  all  those  countervailing  influences  which  other  forms  o£ 
government  may  supply,  the  instance  of  the  Erie  ring  shows,  which  but 


4:2      JACKS0N*8  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

Jackson  accepted  the  challenge  of  the  Baltimore  convention, 
and  that  he  also  made  "  Jackson  or  the  Bank "  the  watch- 
word in  the  electoral  campaign. 

The  democratic  members  of  congress  had  not  expected 
that  the  president  would  place  before  the  party  the  alterna- 
tive of  either  dropping  him  or  of  rejecting  the  petition  of  the 
bank.  It  was,  indeed,  known  that  he  took  umbrage  at  the 
application  just  at  this  time;  but,  although  the  democrats 
had  a  considerable  majority  in  the  house  of  representatives, 
the  bank  bill  was  passed  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  seven 
against  eighty-five.^     The  following  day,  July  4,  it  went  to 

the  other  day  we  saw  controlling  the  legislature  and  half  the  judiciary  of 
the  "  Empire  State  "  of  the  Union.  If  James  Fisk's  mammonocracy  was 
confined  to  a  state  or  two,  it  was  probably  thanks  only  to  the  toughness  of 
"Old  Hickory,"  which,  forty  years  before,  had  thrown  Fisk's  precursor, 
Nicholas  Biddle,  in  that  previous  wrestle,  wherein  the  control  of  the  Union 
itself  was  at  stake."  (The  Academy,  May  2,  1874.)  I  share  Ludlow's 
view  that  the  continuance  of  the  bank  was  not  desirable.  But  that  alone 
is  not  the  question.  The  credit  Jackson  deserves  for  destroying  it  is  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  the  evil  he  caused  by  the  manner  in  which  he 
brought  about  its  destruction.  Besides,  Jackson  proved  himself  entirely 
incompetent  to  put  anything  better  in  its  place.  Ludlow's  comparison  of 
the  bank  with  the  *'  Erie  Ring,"  and  of  Biddle  with  Fisk,  is,  in  my  opinion, 
an  exceedingly  unhappy  one.  It  seems  to  me  that  here  Ludlow,  in  part, 
looks  somewhat  through  the  Benton- Parton  historical  spectacles;  that,  in 
part,  he  does  not  take  suflBciently  into  account  the  immense  difference  be- 
tween the  economic  condition  of  the  country  then  and  now;  and  that,  in  part, 
he  ignores  entirely  the  true  nature  and  the  poUtical  significance  of  the  Erie 
ring  and  of  its  one-time  chief.  The  fact  that  New  York  had  its  James 
Fisk,  and  that  a  swarm  of  greater  and  lesser  Fisks  is  spread  over  the 
United  States,  was  made  possible,  for  the  first  time,  by  the  general  pohtical 
development  which  manifested  itself  in  all  its  power  during  Jackson's 
administration,  and  which  Jackson  himself  promoted  more  than  any  other 
personage.  I  do  not  believe  that  I  underestimate  Jackson,  as  the  honor- 
able critic  reproaches  me  with  doing.  If  I  am  not  greatly  self- deceived,  I 
estimate  him  all  the  more  correctly  because  I  follow  the  causes  of  tilings 
to  lower  depths  in  their  wider  ramifications,  and  because  I  follow  their 
effects,  and  not  the  direct  effects  only,  farther. 
'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI.  p.  753. 


PABTY   DISCIFLINB.  43 

the  president,  who,  on  the  tenth  of  the  same  month,  sent  it 
back  to  the  senate  with  his  veto.*  In  doing  so,  he  now,  in 
an  unambiguous  manner,  gave  it  to  be  understood  that  he 
would  regard  the  issue  of  the  election  as  the  final  decree  of 
the  people.  By  this  means  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of 
the  bank  became  really  and  entirely  a  party  question.  Only 
few  of  the  many  democratic  friends  of  the  bank  had  the 
courage  to  remain  true  to  their  former  views.  Many  of 
those  who  had  just  again  petitioned  for  its  continuance,  now 
reviled  it  as  a  "  monster  "  which  threatened  to  devour  the  free- 
dom of  the  republic,  and  there  were  some  even  who,  with 
slavish  shamelessness,  acknowledged  that  Jackson's  order  had 
simply  made  opposition  to  it  a  party  law.^  This  was  the 
first  time  that,  in  an  important  question,  party  discipline 
was  raised  to  the  dignity  of  the  supreme  law  of  the  demo- 

'  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  863-876. 

*  In  the  city  of  New  York,  the  democrats  wrangled  among  themselves 
over  the  question,  whether  the  member  of  congress,  hitherto  Verplanck,  or 
one  Selden  instead,  should  be  elected  to  the  house  of  representatives.  The 
"  Evening  Post,"  one  of  the  official  papers  of  the  Tammany  society  which 
took  Verplanck 's  part,  remarked  in  an  article:  "  Mr.  Verplanck,  it  seems, 
voted  in  favor  of  the  United  States  Bank.  There  is  not  a  single  act  but 
this  in  the  whole  course  of  his  political  life  which  even  the  noisy  champions 
of  Mr.  Selden  have  ventured  to  name  against  him.  .  On  the  contrary,  on 
all  important  questions,  he  has  ever  been  found  on  the  side  of  the  execu- 
tive. .  .  .  *But  he  has  committed  one  sin,' say  certain  obstreperous 
friends  of  Mr.  Selden — '  he  voted  in  favor  of  rechartering  the  United  States 
Bank.'  But  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that,  at  the  time  that  question  was 
taken  in  congress,  it  had  not  yet  become  of  pai-ty  demarcation  in  this  city. 
It  was  not  yet  an  ascertained  fact  that  the  president  would  veto  the  bill; 
and  Mr.  Verplanck  was  in  possession  of  no  data  which  could,  by  any 
means,  make  it  certain  that  his  constituents  were  opposed  to  the  bank. 
He  had  before  him  petitions  of  a  large  number  of  his  constituents,  praying, 
in  earnest  terms,  for  the  renewal  of  the  charter.  These  petitions  had  on 
them  the  names  of  many  as  sound  democrats  as  are  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  country.  They  had  on  them  names  of  men  who  stood  and  stand 
among  the  highest  at  Tammany  Hall  —  leading  spirits  in  the  wigwam  — 
chiefs  at  the  council  board."    Niles,  XLIII,  p.  145. 


44    Jackson's  administkation — annexation  of  texas. 

cratic  party;  and,  for  the  present,  the  party  acknowledged 
the  opinion  and  the  will  of  the  president  to  be  the  source  of 
their  party  programme. 

But  this  alone  did  not  give  the  veto  an  importance  which 
extended  far  beyond  the  question  of  the  continuance  or  ces- 
sation of  the  bank.  The  president  based  his  justification  of 
it  on  a  series  of  principles  which  advanced  a  theory  of  the 
relation  of  the  executive  to  the  legislative  and  judicial  pow- 
ers which  was  pregnant  with  meaning. 

In  his  veto  message,  Jackson  declared  that  if  he  had  been 
solicited  to,  he  would  have  been  ready  to  lay  before  congress 
the  plan  of  a  bank  against  which  no  objection,  constitutional 
or  of  inexpediency,  could  be  raised.     During  Washington's 
administration,  the  anti-Federalists  had  frequently  expressed 
themselves  very  pointedly  to  the  effect  that  congress  permitted 
itself  to  receive  suggestions  from  the  heads  of  departments, 
especially  from  Hamilton,  in  the  matter  of  the  framing  of 
bills.    The  practice,  however,  did  not  fall  into  total  disuse  even 
under  the  republican  regime.     But  the  thought  of  having  re- 
course to  the  president  for  the  draught  of  a  proposed  law,  was 
entirely  new.     Great  as  was  the  part  played  by  the  theory 
of  the  "  division  of  power  "  in  the  views  of  the  founders  of 
the  republic,  they  had  a  great  deal  too  much  political  good 
sense  to  attempt  to  carry  it  out  absolutely  in  the  constitution. 
The  president  was,  after  much  deliberation,  made  a  cooperat- 
ing factor  in  legislation,  but,  in  the  debates  of  the  convention 
at  Philadelphia,  the  thought  of  giving  him  a  share  in  the  initi- 
ative of  legislation  was  not  expressed  even  once.     Divergent 
as  views  were,  it  was  still  considered,  and  without  exception, 
a  self-evident  matter,  that  the  participation  of  the  "  execu- 
tive "  in  the  legislative  power  could  have  had  no  object  but  its 
own  protection,  and  to  act  as  a  certain  check  on  the  legislative. 
In  the  Federalist^  also,  the  question  is  discussed  only  from 
these  two  points  of  view.     The  "  recommendation  "  by  him 


Jackson's  veto.  45 

of  "  such  measures  as  -he  should  judge  necessary  and  expe- 
dient," and  which,  besides,  is  made  the  duty  of  the  president 
by  the  constitution,  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  taking 
of  the  initiative  in  legislation.  .  Whether  the  genius  of  repub- 
licanism permits  the  executive  power  under  any  circumstances 
to  take  part  in  it,  this  is  not  the  place  to  discuss;  that  it  does 
not  has,  from  the  first,  been  the  opinion  universally  enter- 
tained in  the  United  States,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  genius 
of  the  constitution  ran  counter  to  Jackson's  pretensions.  Clay 
said  that  if  the  president  were  to  furnish  draughts  for  the  laws, 
the  country  should  be  governed  by  "  ukases  and  decrees," 
and  not  be  subjected  to  the  useless  expense  of  a  congress. 

The  censure  contained  in  this  expression  was  not  as  exag- 
gerated as  may  seem  at  first  sight.  In  constitutional  mon- 
archies, it  was  already  customary  not  to  permit  the  prince 
to  be  drawn  into  parliamentary  transactions,  that  there  might 
not  be  so  much  as  a  semblance  that  there  was  an  intention 
to  exert  a  pressure  on  the  free  deliberations  and  resolves  of 
the  legislative  body.  In  the  congress  of  the  republic,  how- 
ever, it  now  became  a  very  usual  thing  to  use  the  prediction 
of  a  presidential  veto  as  a  chief  argument  in  debate.  This 
could  not  be  explained  by  an  improper  dependence  of  some 
members  of  congress  on  the  president  alone.  Congress  had 
either  to  take  a  corrupt  and  revolutionary  course,  or  the 
president  must  have  had  a  view  on  the  veto  power  which 
departed  widely  from  that  of  his  predecessors. 

Of  this  last,  the  veto  message  left  no  doubt.  Jackson  char- 
acterized a  great  part  of  the  provisions  of  the  existing  bank 
law  as  unconstitutional,  and  accused  the  new  bank  bill  of 
substantially  preserving  these  provisions.  Tlie  provisions  in 
question,  he  claimed,  were  unconstitutional,  because  they 
were  not,as  the  constitution  required, "  necessary  and  proper  " 
to  attain  the  object  intended. 

That  the  veto  was  valid  in  law  there  was  no  question,  since 


46    Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  constitution,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  provisions  as  to 
time,  attaches  no  condition  to  the  exercise  of  the  veto-power, 
except  a  statement  of  the  reasons  therefor.  But  the  ques- 
tion of  law  was  not  limited  to  this.  It  was  not  only  an  inter- 
esting question  theoretically,  but  a  practical  question  of  the 
highest  importance,  whether  these  reasons  of  Jackson  were 
constitutional.  And  when  the  bill  came  up  for  discussion 
again  in  the  senate,  much  greater  weight  was  attached  to 
this  than  to  the  question  of  utility. 

Since  the  president,  as  already  said,  is  not  to  be  considered 
as  a  power  coordinate  with  congress  in  the  matter  of  legis- 
lation,^ we  may  call  it  running  counter  to  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution  that  the  president  should  think  himself  justi- 
fied, the  moment  any  provision  in  the  details  of  a  bill  did 
not  entirely  suit  him,  to  exercise  his  veto  power.  Yet,  of 
course,  a  well  defined  limit  cannot  here  be  drawn.  But 
Jackson  extended  the  competency  of  his  individual  judg- 
ment on  the  "  necessary  and  proper  "  to  the  constitutionsJ 
question  too.  Doubtless,  the  president  not  only  might  refuse 
his  assent  to  every  bill  which  he  considered  unconstitutional, 
but  he  had  to  do  so.  But,  it  was  just  as  unquestionable, 
that,  in  the  formation  of  his  judgment  on  this  question,  it 
was  improper  for  him  to  make  his  views  concerning  the 
"  necessary  and  proper  "  of  the  separate  provisions,  the  sole 
criterion.  If  a  general  power  were  granted  to  congress,  to  con- 
gress also  belonged  the  right  to  judge  finally  how  it  could  ex- 
ercise that  power  so  that  it  might  best  serve  the  end  for  which 
it  was  given.  To  make  the  constitutionality  of  a  legislative 
act  depend  on  whether  some  other  governmental  factor  may 
not  consider  that  certa,in  other  individual  provisions  might 
serve  the  purpose  better,  is  absurd.  The  constitutionality  of 
an  act  is,  as  the  word  implies,  a  question  of  law,  and  the 

'  Art  I,  sec.  1,  of  the  constitution,  reads:     "  All  legislative  powers  here- 
ia  granted  shall  be  vested  in  a  congress  of  the  United  States. 


ASUSB  OF  THE  VETO   POWEB.  47 

rule  goveming  the  decision  of  questions  of  law  cannot  be  in- 
dividual opinion  on  mere  questions  of  expediency.^  Were 
this  not  so,  not  only  the  certainty  of  the  law,  but  its  con- 
tinuing identity  would  be,  in  principle,  done  away  with. 
The  president,  if  he  were  consistently  to  carry  out  this  new 
doctrine,  should  endeavor  to  prevent  all  legislation  which 
did  not,  in  every  particular,  entirely  correspond  with  his 
views,  and  he  might  do  it  in  all  instances  in  which  he  could 
count  on  one-third  of  the  members  of  both  houses  of  con- 
gress. What  yesterday  was  legal  might  be  to-day —  so  far 
as  the  executive  was  concerned — illegal,  of  no  binding 
force,  if  another  person  had  in  the  mean  time  assumed  the 
presidental  chair,  if  the  president  had  changed  his  mind,  or 
if  a  change  of  circumstances  seemed  to  require  a  different 
judgment  as  to  how  well  a  legislative  measure  was  adapted 
to  its  end.  For  Jackson  desired  not  only  to  pass  judgment 
on  the  constitutionality  of  the  bills  laid  before  him  for  his 
approval,  but  also  on  that  of  existing  laws,  which  had  be- 
come such  in  a  constitutional  manner,  taking  his  own  views 
on  the  suitableness  of  their  separate  provisions  as  a  criterion. 
Whatever  Jackson's  views  as  a  private  individual  might 
have  been,  as  president  he  should  have  looked  on  the  charter 

*  "  This  power,  if  constitutional  at  all,  is  only  constitutional  in  the  hands 
of  congress.  Anywhere  else,  its  exercise  would  be  plain  usurpation.  If, 
then,  the  authority  to  decide  what  powers  ought  to  be  granted  to  a  bank 
belong  to  congress,  and  congress  shall  have  exercised  that  power,  it  would 
seem  little  better  than  absurd  to  say  that  its  act,  nevertheless,  would  be 
unconstitutional  and  invaUd,  if,  in  the  opinion  of  a  third  party,  it  had  mis- 
judged, on  a  question  of  expediency,  in  the  arrangement  of  details.  Ac- 
cording to  such  a  mode  of  reasoning,  a  mistake  in  the  exercise  of  jurisdic- 
tion takes  away  the  jurisdiction.  If  congress  decide  right,  its  decision  may 
stand;  if  it  decide  wrong,  its  decision  is  nugatory;  and  whether  its  decision 
be  right  or  wrong,  another  is  to  judge,  although  the  original  power  of 
making  the  decision  must  be  allowed  to  be  exclusively  in  congress.  This 
is  the  end  to  which  the  argument  of  the  message  wiU  conduct  its  follow- 
ers."   WebBL'B  Works,  III,  p.  438. 


48      JAOKSOn's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

of  the  bank  not  only  as  a  binding,  but  also  as  a  constitutional 
law.  Wlien  a  law  has  come  into  existence  in  a  constitu- 
tional manner,  the  constitution  knows  of  only  one  authority, 
the  judicial,  which  may  declare  it  unconstitutional.  But 
Jackson  —  as  president,  whose  highest  duty  the  constitu- 
tion makes  it  to  "  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  ex- 
ecuted "  —  not  only  claimed  the  right  to  deny  the  constitu- 
tionality and  force  of  a  law,  in  the  absence  of  such  a  decision 
by  a  federal  court,  and  to  make  this  his  conviction  the  mo- 
tive of  official  action ;  but  he  did  so  in  the  face  of  an  express 
decision  of  the  supreme  court.  He,  indeed,  would  not  allow 
that  the  decision  in  the  case  of  McCulloch  v.  State  of 
Maryland  covered  the  whole  question,  because  the  court 
had  declared  only  that  the  establishment  of  a  bank  was  con- 
stitutional, but  not  that  all  the  provisions  of  the  charter  of 
that  bank  were  constitutional.  But  the  court  had,  at  the 
same  time,  declared  that  it  was  authorized  to  pass  judgment 
only  on  the  first  question,  for  the  reason  that  the  constitution 
gave  full  discretion  to  the  legislator  in  relation  to  the  second ;  * 
but  the  legislator  is  congress,  and  not  congress  and  the  pres- 
ident.'' 

' "  But  where  the  law  is  not  prohibited  [by  the  constitution],  and  is  re- 
ally calculated  to  affect  any  of  the  objects  intrusted  to  the  government,  to 
undertake  here  to  inquire  into  the  degree  of  its  necessity,  would  be  to  pass 
the  line  which  circumscribes  the  judicial  department,  and  to  tread  on  leg- 
islative ground."    Wheaton's  Rep.,  IV,  p.  423;  Curtis,  IV,  p.  431. 

'  The  last  sentence  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  decision  of  the  supreme  court, 
but  is  an  opinion  put  forward  by  myself.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  supreme 
court  has  never  had  an  opportunity  to  give  an  opinion  on  this  point.  But 
it  is  apparent  from  the  course  of  the  argument  in  the  matter  of  McCulloch 
v.  State  of  Maryland,  that  the  court,  considering  the  discretion  which  it 
ascribes  to  congress,  looked  upon  it  as  the  sole  possessor  of  the  legislative 
initiative.  Thus,  for  instance,  we  read:  "  To  have  declared  that  the  best 
means  shall  not  be  used,  but  those  alone  without  which  the  power  given 
would  be  nugatory,  would  have  been  to  deprive  the  legislature  of  the  ca- 
pacity to  avail  itself  of  experience,  to  exercise  its  reason,  and  to  accommo- 


THE   VETO   AND   THK   MASSES.  49 

But  Jackson  went  even  a  step  farther.     He  denied  entirely 
the  competency  of  the  court  to  give  a  binding  interpretation 
of  the  constitution  in  such  questions.     In  the  veto-messa<^, 
lie  says:     "Each  public  officer  who  takes  an  oath  to  support 
the  constitution,  swears  that  he  will  support  it  as  he  under- 
stands it,  and  not  as  it  is  understood  by  others."    This  was 
unquestionably  correct  in  relation  to  open  questions,  but  it 
was  just  as  unquestionably  incorrect  in  relation  to  questions 
which  were  no  longer  open,  because  the  authority  established 
by  the  constitution  to  give  a  final  decision  had  already  de- 
cided them.     If  the  constitution  does  not  make  it  the  duty 
of  the  federal  executive  and  the  federal  legislative  powers 
to  recognize  the  judgment  of  the  federal  supreme  court  as 
final  in  constitutional  questions,  then  there  is  no  constitu- 
tional law  of  the  Union ;  and  the  fundamental  idea  on  which 
this  constitutional  state  rests  is,  that  it  should  not  be  an  un- 
arbitrary  law-respecting  state  (Rechtsstaat),'  the  law  denies 
itself.     According  to  this,  the  supreme  court  of  the  Union 
has  its  own  constitutional  law;  each  president  his  own ;  each 
new  majority  in  congress  its  own;  and  the  public  law  of 
the  Union  is  in  principle  the  chaos  of  law,  and  the  decision 
of  a  question  of  law  lies  outside  the  realm  of  possibility. 

In  a  congress,  in  which  men  versed  in  the  law  like  Daniel 
Webster  sat,  these  obvious  consequences  of  Jackson's  constitu- 
tional doctrines  must  have  been  drawn  with  great  acuteness.' 
But  the  veto-message  contained  one  paragraph  which  made 
the  masses  stupid  and  deaf  even  to  the  clearest  reasoning 

date  its  legislation  to  drcumstancea.  ...  As  little  can  it  be  reqtured 
to  prove,  that  in  the  absence  of  this  daose  congress  would  have  some 
choice  of  means.  That  it  might  employ  those  which,  in  its  judgment 
would  most  advantageously  eflFect  the  object  to  be  accomplished."  Jack- 
son, therefore,  was  by  no  means  authorized  to  say:  "  Under  the  decision 
of  the  supreme  court  it  is  the  exclusive  province  of  congress  and  the  presi- 
dent to  decide,"  etc. 
■  Webster's  Works,  III,  pp.  433,  434. 
4 


50    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

and  to  the  most  impressive  warnings.  Jackson  reckoned 
the  charter  of  the  bank  among  the  laws  which  grant  "  ex- 
clusive privileges  "  which  "  undertake  to  make  the  rich  richer 
and  the  potent  more  powerful,"  and  which,  therefore,  give 
"  the  humble  members  of  society,  the  farmers,  mechanics  and 
laborers,  who  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  means  of  secur- 
ing such  favors,  a  right  to  complain  of  the  injustice  of  their  > 
government."  When  chords  like  these  are  struck  only  by 
the  hands  of  a  mere  demagogue,  danger  is  never  entirely  ab- 
sent. If  struck  by  a  real  man  of  the  people,  with  all  the 
energy  of  conviction  of  a  narrow-minded  man  with  absolute 
faith  in  himself,  a  powerful  echo  is  always  certain  to  follow. 
The  leaders  of  the  opposition  so  little  understood  the 
masses  that  they  hailed  the  veto  with  joy,  and  endeavored 
to  circulate  the  message  as  widely  as  possible,  just' as  the 
continental  congress  had  once  done  with  the  proclamation  of 
North's  ministry.^  The  joy  of  the  administration  party  was, 
with  good  reason,  unlimited;  the  veto-message  made  Jack- 
son master  of  the  Union  for  as  long  a  time  as  he  desired  to 
be  such.^     Spite  of  all  the  terrors  of  the  cholera,  the  electoral 

'Biddle  himself  writes  to  Dallas  as  follows:  "You  ask  what  is  the 
effect  of  the  veto?  My  impression  is,  that  it  is  working  as  well  as  the 
friends  of  the  bank  and  of  the  pari;y  could  desire.  ...  As  to  the  veto- 
message,  I  am  delighted  with  it.  It  has  all  the  fury  of  a  chained  panther, 
biting  the  bars  of  his  cage.  It  is  really  a  manifesto  of  anarchy,  such  as 
Marat  or  Robespierre  might  have  issued  to  the  mob  of  the  Faubourg  St. 
Antoine;  and  my  hope  is,  that  it  will  contribute  to  relieve  the  country 
from  the  dominion  of  these  miserable  people."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay, 
p.  S41. 

'Ed.  Livingston  writes  to  Dallas,  Aug.  26,  1832:  "As  to  the  message, 
I  will  say  no  more  of  it  than  that  no  part  of  it  is  mine.  This  is  a  great 
piece  of  self-denial,  considering  the  extravagant  applause  with  which  it  has 
been  received.  .  .  .  There  are  arguments  in  it  that  an  ingenious  critic 
might  plausibly  expose,  and  I  am  glad  that  it  has  only  been  nibbled  at  by 
the  editors.  Is  this  concert?  Or  what  can  be  the  reason  of  this  forbear- 
ance?   1  dreaded  an  immediate  attack.    Our  friends  have  lost  no  time  in 


Jackson's  message.  51 

campaign  was  carried  on  in  the  summer  of  1832  with  an 
energy  and  enthusiasm  never  before  equalled;  and  all  the 
well-placed  speeches  and  all  the  pamphlets  in  armor  of 
the  opposition  were  completely  powerless  against  the  power 
of  the  hickory  trees.  Jackson  received  two  hundred  and 
nineteen  electoral  votes  against  forty-nine  for  Clay.' 

In  view  of  Jackson's  character,  it  was  self-evident  that  the 
consequence  of  this  brilliant  victory,  which  surpassed  all  ex- 
pectation in  its  brilliancy,  would  be  followed  by  the  most 
ruthless  prosecution  of  the  war  against  the  bank.     Tlie  an- 
nual message  of  December  4,  1832,  surprised  congress  by 
the  recommendation  to  convert  all  funded  property  which 
the  government  had  invested  in  the  stocks  of  corporations 
created  by  itself  or  by  the  several  states,  into  ready  money. 
To  this  was  added  a  summons  to  cause  an  investigation  to 
be  made  into  the  condition  of  the  bank,  as  there  were  rumors 
in  circulation  which,  if  true,  gave  reason  to  fear  for  the 
safety  of  the  federal  deposits.''    This  summons  was  all  the 
more  surprising,  since  the  house  of  representatives  had 
already",  on  the  14th  of  March  of  the  same  year,  appointed  a 
committee  of  investigation,'  which,  although  composed  for 
the  most  part  of  men  opposed  to  the  renewal  of  the  charter 
of  the  bank,  had  made  an  entirely  favorable  report.     Jackson 
had,  indeed,  in  his  veto-message,  declared  the  action  of  this 
committee  unsatisfactory  in  every  respect.     But  the  pre- 
sumptuous boldness  of  this  assertion  did  not  suffice  to  make 
congress  render  itself  ridiculous  by  ordering  another  investi- 
gation, as  a  pretext  for  which  the  president  had  not  adduced 

taking  off  its  force,  by  antidpatiiig  the  public  opinion."  Hunt,  Life  of 
Edw.  Livingston,  pp.  370,  371. 

'  Vermont  had  given  its  seven  votes  to  Wirt,  and  South  Carolina  its 
eleven  votes  to  John  Floyd.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  168. 

•Statesm.'s  Man.,  II.  p.  888. 

•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,  pp.  605, 638. 


52    Jackson's  admtntsteatton  —  annexation  ok  texas. 

even  one  plausible  fact.  The  house  resolved  on  the  2d  of 
March,  1833,  bj  one  hundred  and  nine  against  fortj-six 
votes,  that  the  deposits  "  may  ...  be  safely  continued 
in  the  Bank  of  the  United  States."  * 

Under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  unusual  majority  by 
which  this  resolution  was  passed  would  have  been  consid- 
ered decisive  of  the  matter.  Jackson  never  considered  ele- 
ments of  this  nature  in  his  resolves.  If  congress  wished  to 
cooperate  with  him,  well  and  good;  if  not,  he  went  his  way 
alone  unconcerned. 

And  it  was  with  the  cabinet  as  with  congress.  The  ma- 
jority  of  the  former  wanted  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
plan  suggested  in  that  passage  of  the  annual  message.  Mc- 
Lane  was  on  this  account  transferred  from  the  department 
of  finance  to  the  department  of  state,  and  Diiane  was  made 
secretary  of  the  treasury  in  his  stead.  Jackson  expected  a 
more  cordial  cooperation  from  the  latter,  because  he  was  a 
decided  opponent  of  the  chai'ter  of  the  bank.^ 

On  the  first  of  June,  1833,  Duane  entered  on  the  duties 
of  his  ofiice,  and  as  early  as  the  third  of  June  the  president 
personally  communicated  to  him  his  intentions  in  relation  to 
the  deposits.  Duane  immediately  replied  that  he  was  not 
able  to  share  the  president's  views,  and  proposed  that  either 
congress  should  be  called  upon  to  make  another  investigation 

'  Ibid.,  Xn,  p.  191. 

•  This  is  not  to  be  understood  as  if  Duane  had  been  nominated  to  with- 
draw the  deposits.  And  it  can,  just  as  little,  be  said  with  certainty,  as  it 
appears  from  Parton's  (Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,  III,  p.  508)  representa- 
tion, that  the  choice  was  made  entirely  independently  of  this  question. 
Parton  appeals  to  the  fact  that  the  negotiations  with  Duane  had  been 
opened  as  early  as  December,  1832.  But  the  first  demand  was  made  on 
the  day  on  which  the  annual  message  was  dated.  Jackson  had,  therefore, 
certainly  already  entertained  the  thought  not  to  leave  the  deposits  in  the 
bank,  and  it  will  scarcely  be  claimed  that  he  hoped  to, obtain  the  assent  of 
this  congress  to  their  removal. 


kkndall's  mission.  63 

or  that  recourse  should  be  had  to  the  courts.^  Jackson  re- 
jected both  these  propositions  absohitelj.  Here  the  matter 
rested  until  the  end  of  the  month.  On  the  first  of  July, 
Duane  received  a  proposition,  with  a  very  full  statement  of 
reasons,  to  cause  inquiries  to  be  made,  through  an  agent,  of 
certain  banks,  whether  they  would  be  willing  to  take  the 
federal  deposits  on  the  conditions  already  fixed,  in  every  de- 
tail, by  the  president.  A  more  preposterous  financial  pro- 
ject has  scarcely  ever  emanated  from  the  head  of  a  govern- 
ment. Duane,  too,  sent  a  written  answer,  discussing  ex- 
haustively every  pertinent  question.  That  the  conclusions 
he  drew  fell  on  deaf  ears,  need  scarcely  to  be  told  now.  Sev- 
eral letters  more  were  passed  between  the  president  and  the 
secretary,  without  making  any  impression  on  either  side. 
The  practical  results  of  the  negotiations  were  confined  to  a 
promise  given  by  Duane,  at  the  end  of  July,  to  hand  in  his 
resignation  in  case  he  could  come  to  no  understanding  with 
the  president,  and  commissioning  Kendall  to  inform  himself 
what  kind  of  a  reception  the  eventual  execution  of  Jackson's 
plan  would  meet  with  from  the  best  banks. 

Kendall's  mission  was,  in  Duane's  opinion,  entirely  with- 
out result;  the  president's  bank-agency  plan  was  "  unani- 
mously "  rejected,  and  the  banks  which  had  professed  them- 
selves ready  to  take  the  deposits  were  the  least  reliable.^  Jack- 
son, however,  was  entirely  satisfied  with  the  report  of  the 
agent,  for  his  resolve  was  already  taken.'    On  the  tenth  of 

'  Mr.  Duane's  Exposition,  Niles,  XLV,  p.  236. 

*  Even  Benton  writes:  "  Instead  of  a  competition  among  them  [the  local 
banks]  to  obtain  the  deposits,  there  was  holding  off,  and  an  absolute  re- 
fusal on  the  part  of  many.''  He  is  not  at  a  loss  for  an  explanation  tend- 
ing to  establish  his  own  view  of  the  whole  matter.  "  It  was  the  fear  of 
the  Bank  of  the  United  Siates."    Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  385. 

•Benton  writes:  "  But  a  competent  number  were  found."  Considering 
the  exuberance  with  which  he  describes  this  "heroic  deed  "  of  Jackson's, 
this  expression  is  significant. 


54      JAOKSOn's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

September  lie  informed  tlie  cabinet  that  he  desired  to  have 
a  day  fixed,  dating  from  which  the  funds  of  the  government 
should  be  no  longer  deposited  with  the  bank.^  One  week 
later,  he,  at  another  meeting  of  the  cabinet,  heard  the  views 
of  each  of  its  members  on  the  communication  of  the  tenth. 
On  the  following  day  (September  18  %  he,  contrary  to  the 
custom  hitherto,  communicated  his  own  views  to  the  cabinet 
in  writing.  The  written  form  was  not  chosen,  because  of 
the  extraordinary  importance  of  the  question.  The  principal 
address  of  this  remarkable  document  ran  to  the  people  and 
not  to  the  cabinet;  the  president  endeavored  to  obtain  a  ver- 
dict of  the  people  in  his  favor,  in  a  manner  unknown  to  the 
constitution  and  the  laws,  before  judgment  could  be  passed 
upon  his  mode  of  action  by  competent  authority. 

On  the  20th  of  September,  after  Duane  had  made  known 
his  last  resolve  to  the  president,  the  Globe,  the  official  pa- 
per of  the  administration,  wrote  that  it  was  authorized  to  say 
that  the  deposits  would  be  made  with  the  state  banks,  instead 
of  with  the  United  States  Bank,  as  soon  as  the  arrangements 
necessary  to  that  end  had  been  made.^  Duane  had  previously 
entered  his  protest  against  this  semi-official  announcement.^ 
Referring  to  this,  he  wrote  to  the  president  on  the  21st  of 
September  that  he  recalled  his  over-hasty  promise,  and  that 

'  The  same  interpretation  is  to  be  put  on  the  "removal  of  the  deposits." 
The  money  ah-eady  deposited  with  the  bank  was  not  withdrawn  from  it 
all  at  once,  but  gradually;  according  as  the  actual  wants  of  the  govern- 
ment demanded  it. 

•  Benton  gives  the  22d  of  September  (1.  c,  p.  376).  It  would  be  exceed- 
ingly surprising  if  this  was  no  more  than  a  typographical  error.  Benton 
had  his  hand  so  deep  in  the  bank  game  that  he  knew  very  well  the  im- 
portance of  dates  for  a  correct  understanding  of  Jackson's  mode  of  action. 
The  false  date  is  certainly  not  a  pardonable  error. 

»Niles,  XLV,  p.  237. 

*  Letter  of  the  19th  of  September.  The  entire  correspondence  between 
him  and  Jackson  of  September  19  to  September  23,  is  printed  in  Niles, 
XLV,  pp.  237-239. 


THE   BAXK   LAW.  55 

iie  would  not  give  up  his  position  voluntarily,  for  the  reason 
that,  in  his  opinion,  the  discretion  in  the  matter  of  removing 
the  deposits  rested  with  him,  and  that  he  could  not  give  his 
approval  to  it,  Jackson  immediately  returned  the  letter  to 
him  as  unbecoming,  curtly  refused  all  "further  discussion," 
and  asked  him  for  a  decisive  answer  to  the  question,  whether 
he  would  take  the  measures  which  he  (Jackson)  considered 
necessary.  On  the  very  same  day,  Duane  sent  three  other 
letters  to  the  president,  in  which  he,  while  more  minutely 
elaborating  certain  points,  reiterated  his  refusal  to  order  the 
removal  of  the  deposits  or  to  resign,  with  still  greater  de- 
termination. Whereupon  Jackson  sent  him  his  dismissal. 
On  the  very  same  day, Attorney  General  Taney  was  nomi- 
nated secretary  of  the  treasury,  and  he  gave  the  order  de- 
sired by  the  president  without  delay. 

Thus  matters  stood  when  congress  met  in  Decembei  On 
the  4th  of  that  month,  Taney,  in  accordance  with  the  law, 
communicated  to  it  his  reasons  for  the  order  he  had  given.' 
His  statement  of  reasons  began  with  an  exhaustive  discus- 
sion of  the  question  of  law,  although  the  argument  pre- 
tended that  the  raising  of  such  a  question  was  entirely 
inadmissible.  By  the  opposing  side,  it  was  rightly  consid- 
ered the  more  essential,  because,  as  a  precedent,  it  might 
obtain  an  importance  which  might  extend  vastly  farther  than 
the  frightful  disturbances  which  the  economic  life  of  the 
country  experienced  through  tlie  autocratic  action  of  the 
president. 

The  critical  examination  of  the  legal  question  had,  of 
course,  to  be  made  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  April  10, 
1816,  which  had  created  the  bank.  Section  sixteen  of  this 
law  reads:  "And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  deposits  of 
the  money  of  the  United  States,  in  places  in  which  the  said 
bank  and  branches  thereof  may  be  established,  shall  be  made 

» NUes,  XLV,  pp.  258-264, 


56    Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  tkxas. 

in  said  bank  or  branches  thereof,  unless  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  shall  at  any  time  otherwise  order  and  direct;  in 
which  case  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  shall  immediately 
lay  before  congress,  if  in  session,  and  if  not,  immediately 
after  the  commencement  of  the  next  session,  the  reason  of 
sack  order  or  direction."  ^  The  wording  of  this  provision 
was  unquestionably  so  broad  that  the  secretaiy  of  the  treas- 
ury could  be  accused  only  of  a  violation  of  its  spirit,  but 
not  of  its  letter.  But  to  the  broad  wording  of  the  provis- 
ion, Taney  gave  so  broad  an  interpretation,  that,  according 
to  it,  there  could  not  be,  under  any  circumstances,  the  possi- 
bility of  a  violation  of  even  the  spirit  of  the  law.  He  was, 
indeed,  right,. reasoning  from  the  intention  of  the  legislator, 
in  considering  that  the  discretion  of  the  secretary  of  finance 
was  not  confined  altogether  exclusively  to  the  case  of  the 
want  of  safety  of  the  deposited  moneys  —  a  want  of  safety 
which  was  not  even  pretended  now.  But  he  certainly  went 
too  far  in  the  other  direction  when  he  said:  "He  has  the 
right  to  remove  them  [the  deposits],  and  it  is  his  duty  to 
remove  them  whenever  the  public  interest  or  convenience 
will  be  promoted  by  the  change."  Such  an  actual  "  absolute  " 
discretion  would  be  unexampled  in  the  entire  history  of 
federal  legislation.  In  this  way,  congress  would  have  left  a 
matter  of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  economic  life  of 
the  whole  people  completely  at  the  caprice  of  an  official,  in 
tiie  a])pointment  of  whom  only  one  of  the  two  houses  had 
any  direct  part.  Taney  did  not  say  that  he  saw  nothing 
extraordinary  in  this  proceeding.  Rather  did  lie  himself 
declare:  "The  power  over  the  place  of  deposit  for  the  pub- 
lic money  would  seem  properly  to  belong  to  the  legislative 
department  of  the  government,  and  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
why  the  authority  to  withdraw  it  from  this  bank  vras  con- 
fided exclusively  to  the  executive."     This  confessed  difficulty, 

'  Stat,  at  L.,  m,  p.  274. 


tanky's  opinion.  57 

however,  did  not  suggest  to  him  to  go  beyond  the  letter  of 
the  law  in  search  of  its  spirit,  although  he  knew  well  enough 
that  such  search  was,  not  only  in  politics,  but  also  in  the 
courts,  a  proper  one,  frequently  absolutely  necessary  and 
even  decisive.^  And  he  did  not,  otherwise,  adhere  too  te- 
naciously to  the  letter  of  the  law.  Eather  did  he  feel  war- 
ranted to  give  very  great  scope  to  political  considerations,  a 
scope  entirely  unheard  of.  He  not  only  allowed  himself,  with 
the  president,  to  declare  different  provisions  of  the  bank  law 
unconstitutional,  but  he  defended  his  order  for  the  removal 
of  the  deposits,  in  part,  by  the  allegation  that  the  decision 
of  the  "  people "  against  the  renewal  of  the  charter  of  the 
bank  was  to  be  read  in  the  result  of  the  presidential  election. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  so  entangled  in  the  wording 
of  the  law,  that  he  found  that  expressed  in  it  which  was  only 
his  own  arbitrary  deduction  from  it.  It  was  no  where  provided 
that  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  should  "  exclusively "  pos- 
sess the  right  to  remove  the  deposits.  And  he  wanted  the 
word  understood  in  its  most  exact  sense,  for  he,  vdth  the 
strongest  emphasis,  denied  congress  the  right  to  order  the 
removal,  of  its  own  motion.  In  this,  he  relied  on  this  other 
allegation,  that  the  bank  law  was  a  "  contract,"  and  that, 
therefore,  congress  could  not,  without  breach  of  contract, 
exercise  a  right  of  which  it  had  divested  itself  in  favor  of 
the  secretary  of  finance. 

Taney  was  too  thorough  a  jurist  to  be  able  to  overlook 
several  other  principles  of  law  applicable  to  all  contracts  in 
general,  and  especially  to  contracts  of  this  nature,  were  it 

'Chancellor  Kent  says:  "To  reach  and  carry  that  intention  [of  the 
parties  to  the  instrumentl  into  eflect,  the  law,  when  it  becomes  necessary, 
will  control  even  the  Uteral  terms  of  the  contract,  if  they  manifestly  con- 
travene the  puipose;  and  many  cases  are  g^ven  in  the  books,  in  which  the 
plain  intent  has  prevailed  over  the  strict  letter  of  the  contract."  Comm., 
11,  p.  745.  "In  conventibus  contrahentium  voluntatem  potius,  quani 
verba,  spectari  placuit." 


58  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  texas. 

not  that  he  treated  the  question  as  a  politician,  and  did  not 
weigh  it  with  juridical  objectivity.  To  the  contractants 
belong  ipso  j are  the  rights  which  are  agreed  to  in  the  con- 
tract for  their  agents,  unless  it  expressly  provides  otherwise.' 
But  the  contractants  were  the  bank  and  the  Federal  arovern- 
ment,  while  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  was  only  the  agent 
of  the  Federal  government,  and  especially  of  congress. 
How  would  it  have  been  if  it  had  pleased  congress  entirely 
to  abolish  the  office  of  secretary  of  the  treasury  for  the 
twenty  years  for  which  the  charter  of  the  bank  had  been 
granted,  and  to  transfer  its  duties  to  any  other  officer? 
Would  it,  perchance,  have  lost  the  right  to  do  this  by  that 
clause  of  the  bank  law?  Or  could  not  the  deposits  in  such 
case  have  been  removed  from  the  bank  under  any  circum- 
stances? If  the  bank  law  was  really  a  contract  which  thus 
absolutely  bound  congress,  and  if  congress  was  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  contracting  party  simply,  the  bank  might,  indeed, 
object  to  being  made  the  further  object  of  legislative  action 
without  its  consent.  But  this  congress  had  done  in  1819,^ 
the  president  had  sanctioned  the  bill,  and  neither  the  bank 
nor  any  one  else  interposed  the  slightest  objection. 

Unquestionably,  the  bank  law  was,  in  a  certain  sense,  a 
contract;  but  the  bank  and  congress  were  not  on  an  equal 
footing  as  to  rights.  Even  if  congress  had  assumed  certain 
obligations  by  which  it  was  legally  bound  toward  the  bank, 
in  consideration  of  certain  services,  it  did  not  cease  on  that 
account  to  be  the  legislative  power  of  the  country,  even  in 
relation  to  the  bank.  The  latter  could  not,  without  a  gross 
violation  of  duty  in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  place  itself,  like  a 
private  person,  completely  under  the  protection  of  the  courts; 

'  "The  power  of  revocation  is  incident  to  all  agency,  unless  in  express 
terms,  by  the  instrument  creating  it,  a  different  provision  is  made. ''  Clay's 
Sp.,  II,  p.  207. 

» ?tat.  at  L.,  Ill,  p  508. 


POSITION   OF   CONGRESS.  59 

since  these,  in  a  great  many  supposable  cases,  might  not  be 
able  to  guard  the  interests  of  the  government  or  of  the 
country,  although  they  might  declare  the  charter  forfeited 
for  misuser.^  Was  it  so  impossible  that  the  bank  should  fall 
into  bad  hands,and  that  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  should 
not  have  underhanded  dealings  with  it?  Or  was  congress 
tied  completely  hand  and  foot  by  that  provision  of  the  law?' 

' "  A  private  corporation  created  by  the  legislature  may  lose  its  fran- 
chises by  a  misuser  or  a  nonuser  of  them;  and  they  may  be  resumed  by 
the  government  under  a  judicial  judgment  upon  a  quo  warranto  to  ascer- 
tain and  enforce  the  forfeiture."  Terret  v.  Taylor,  Cranch's  Rep.,  IX,  p. 
51;  Curtis,  III,  p.  256. 

'  On  this  point  my  opinion  differs  somewhat  from  that  of  Story.  He 
writes:  "I  agree  with  him  [Taney]  that  congress  could  not  remove  the 
deposits  without  his  consent;  but  I  think  they  may  require  them  to  be  re- 
stored without  his  consent.  They  may  prevent  his  acting  in  favor  of 
themselves,  but  they  cannot  act  against  the  bank  without  his  consent,  and 
through  him."  (life  and  Letters  of  J.  Story,  II,  p.  157.)  It  cannot  be 
questioned  that,  according  to  the  constitutional  law  of  the  Union,  the  char- 
ter of  the  bank  was  a  contract.  The  federal  supreme  court  has  decided  in 
the  case  of  Dartmouth  College  v.  Woodward  (Wheaton's  Rep.,  IV,  p.  518; 
Curtis,  IV,  p.  463  ff.),  and  in  the  case  of  the  Binghampton  Bridge  (Wal- 
lace's Rep.,  Ill,  p.  74),  that  acts  of  incorporation  are  contracts  between  a 
state,  and  therefore,  in  a  corresponding  case,  between  the  government  of 
the  Union  and  the  stockholders.  And  in  the  case  of  Providence  Bank  ». 
BilUngs  (Peters'  Rep.,  IV,  p.  514;  Curtis,  IX,  p.  171  ff.),  it  has  been  spe- 
cially decided  that  an  act  incorporating  a  bank  is  a  contract.  It  does  not, 
however,  seem  to  be  by  any  means  beyond  doubt  that,  as  Story  assumes  in 
the  case  before  us,  "  both  parties  have  made  his  [the  secretary  of  finance's] 
discretion  casus  foederis,  and  that  he  was  the  special  agent  selected  by 
both  parties."  In  my  opinion,  the  wording  of  the  bank  law  does  not  at 
all  exclude  the  construction  that  congress,  only  for  reasons  of  expediency 
of  a  business  nature,  transferred  in  a  faculty-like  manner  to  the  secretary 
of  finance  the  initiative  in  the  exercise  of  a  right,  but  that  the  most  mate- 
rial object  it  had  m  view  in  taking  this  clause  into  the  bank  act  was  to 
reserve  this  right  to  itself  in  order  to  protect  safely  the  interests  of  the 
state.  I  therefore  consider  ii  wrong,  also,  when  Story  later  opposes  an 
action  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  in  favor  of  congress  to  an  action 
against  the  bank.  The  Federal  government  is  a  party  to  the  contract, 
but  congress  is  not  a  party  with  an  interest  of  its  own  like  the  bank.     In 


60     Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Or  was  tlio  sole  protection  of  the  country  to  be  the  hope  that 
the  president  would  dismiss  the  secretary  of  t]\e  treasury? 
Not  cougress,  but  the  government  of  the  Union,  was  a  party 

relation  to  interests,  the  bank  is  opposed  to  the  state,  as  whose  agent  con- 
gress is  to  be  looked  upon. 

Story  writes  concerning  the  principle  first  asserted  and  the  most  essen- 
tial: "Politically,  I  think  the  charter  manifestly  contemplated,  and  so 
was  understood  by  all  parties,  that  the  deposits  should  not  be  withdrawn 
by  the  secretary,  except  for  high  and  important  reasons  of  state,  upon  un- 
expected emergencies,  and  cases  where  the  action  of  congress  could  not  be 
obtained  until  after  it  was  necessary  to  act."  (Life  and  Letters  of  J. 
Story,  II,  p.  156.)  What  can  be  the  nature  of  the  action  of  congress  here 
referred  to  by  Story,  since  he  considers  it  necessary  to  adhere  closely  to  the 
wording  of  the  act,  and  since  the  act  speaks  only  of  an  action  of  the  sec- 
retary of  finance  in  relation  to  the  deposits?  But  he  admits  f mother : 
"Congress  may  certainly  repeal  or  modify  his  [the  secretary  of  the  treas- 
ury's] general  powers. ' '  To  whom ,  then,  did  the  right  to  exercise  the  power 
which  was  reserved  in  the  interest  of  the  state,  belong  in  case  this  office  was 
abolished?  The  supreme  com't  has  declared,  in  the  case  of  the  Binghamp- 
ton  Bridge  (1865;  Wallace's  Rep.,  Ill,  p.  75):  "  Charters  are  to  be  con- 
strued most  favorably  to  the  state,  and  (that)  in  grants  by  the  public 
nothing  passes  by  imphcation.  .  .  .  The  principle  is  this:  that  all 
rights  which  are  asserted  against  the  state  must  be  clearly  defined,  and 
not  raised  by  inference  or  presumption;  and  if  the  charter  is  silent  about  a 
power,  it  does  not  exist.  If,  on  a  fair  reading  of  the  instrument,  reasona- 
ble doubts  arise  as  to  the  proper  interpretation  to  be  given  to  it,  those 
doubts  are  to  be  solved  in  favor  of  the  state;  and  where  it  is  susceptible  of 
two  meanings,  the  one  restricting  and  the  other  extending  the  powers  of 
the  corporation,  that  construction  is  to  be  adopted  which  works  the  least 
harm  to  the  state."  The  general  principle  on  which  this  judgment  is 
based  seems  to  me  to  be  apphcable  to  this  case  also.  On  what  reasonable 
ground  should  the  grant  of  a  right  by  which  the  state  is  prejudiced,  and 
the  renunciation  of  a  right  essential  to  the  guarding  of  the  interests  of  the 
state,  be  judged  differently?  Whether  the  renunciation  is  made  du-ectly 
as  regards  the  corporation  or  indirectly  in  tlie  form  of  a  delegation  of  the 
right  to  an  agent  common  to  both  parties,  can  make  no  difference.  In  my 
opinion,  according  to  the  interpretation  laid  down  in  the  case  cited,  the 
matter  stood  in  such  a  way  that,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  initia- 
tive in  the  removal  of  the  deposits  belonged  to  the  pecretary  of  the  treasury 
alone;  but  congress  not  only  had  a  right  to  order  then:  restoration,  but 
might,  when  extraordinary  drcumstances  required  it,  order  their  removal 


THE   DEPOSIT   QTJESTION.  61 

to  the  contract.  Congress  was  the  legal  originator  of  it 
From  congress  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  had  received  all 
the  powers  which  belonged  to  him  in  the  matter.  But  if 
it  was,  notwithstanding,  the  intention  of  the  legislature  to 
divest  itself  of  the  right  to  the  power  of  protecting  the  in- 
terest and  rights  of  tlio  country  against  the  abuse  of  this 
authority,  we  cannot  altogether  understand  why  the  secre- 
tary of  the  treasury  was  required  to  give  his  reasons  for 
the  removal  of  the  deposits,  and  this  as  soon  as  he  could  send 
any  information  whatever  to  congress.  If  Taney's  construc- 
tion were  right,  then  congress  had  desired  only  to  insure  to 
itself,  by  this  provision,  the  gratification  of  an  idle  curiosity. 
Wliat  good  reason  could  the  law  have  for  providing  that  the 
public  moneys  "should"  be  deposited  in  the  bank,  if,  in  its 
design,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to 
remove  the  deposits  when,  by  his  so  doing,  at  any  moment 
he  might  promote  the  public  interest,  in  any  respect  or  "  any 
degree,"  although  the  bank  was  "perfectly  solvent,"  and 
"  faithful  in  the  performance  of  its  duties!"  If,  in  other 
words,  it  were  the  intention  of  congress  to  make  it  the  duty 
of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  in  depositing  the  public 
moneys,  to  consult  only  his  views  as  to  what  the  public  in- 
terest for  the  time  being  demanded,  it  was  guilty  of  a  con- 
temptible fraudulent  deception  of  the  bank,  inasmuch  as  it 
expressed  such  intention  in  a  form  which  induced  the  bank 
and  the  whole  country  to  believe,  that  it  was  obligatory  to 
deposit  the  public  moneys  with  it,  unless  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstances, or  circumstances  which  could  not  have  been  fore- 
seen, made  some  other  disposition  of  them  necessary.    Thus 

of  its  own  motion,  in  case  it  waa  considered  certain  that  the  secretary  of 
the  treasury  would  not  make  nse  of  his  power.  State  reasons  absolutely 
demanded  that  congress  should  have  this  right,  and  that  the  wording  of 
that  clause  of  the  bank  law  admitte<l  a  diflFerent  interpretation  is  incon- 
testable. The  only  correct  interpretation,  therefore,  was  the  one  which 
recognized  this  right  in  congress. 


62     Jackson's  administration  —  annexaiton  of  texas. 

the  privilege  of  the  bank  in  relation  to  the  public  moneys 
was  reduced  to  this,  that  they  should  be  deposited  with  it 
whenever  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  should  consider  it 
best  that  they  should  be  so  deposited.  But  where  is  the 
monied  corporation  which,  in  consideration  of  such  a  "  privi- 
lege," of  such  a  "monopoly,"  would  have  undertaken  the 
obligations  imposed  on  the  bank  in  its  charter? 

Tliis  absolute  denial  of  a  control  by  congress  and  of  a  legally 
limited  power,  in  relation  to  the  removal  of  the  deposits, 
found  its  full  meaning  in  the  control  to  which  Taney  de- 
clared himself  subject.  He  writes:  "And  as  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury  presides  over  one  of  the  executive  depart- 
ments of  the  government,  and  his  power  over  this  subject 
forms  a  part  of  the  executive  duties  of  his  office,  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  exercised  must  be  subject  to  the  supervision 
of  the  officer  to  whom  the  constitution  has  confided  the 
whole  executive  power,  and  has  required  to  take  care  that 
the  laws  be  faithfully  executed."  The  person  who,  in  con- 
tradiction of  his  own  views  of  the  requirements  of  a  rational 
legislative  policy,  held  with  such  stubborn  consistency  to  the 
letter,  was  certainly  not  warranted  in  making,  at  the  same 
time,  the  deductions  of  his  audacious  logic,  from  what  he 
was  pleased  to  consider  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  the 
legal  rule  of  his  action.  That  the  powers  of  the  secretary 
of  the  treasury  in  relation  to  the  bank  belonged  to  the  "  ex- 
ecutive duties  "  of  his  office,  was  not  provided  by  the  bank 
law;  and  just  as  little  did  it  provide  for  the  right  of  super- 
vision by  the  president.  This  could,  under  the  supposition 
of  the  correctness  of  the  first  allegation,  be  deduced  only 
from  the  broader  allegation,  that  the  constitution  had  con- 
tided  the  entire  executive  power  to  the  president.  But 
this,  however,  is  not  predicated  of  him  in  the  constitution. 
On  the  contrary,  it  gives  the  senate  a  part  in  some  of  the 
most  essential  of  the  executive  privileges.     But  even  if  the 


BIGHTS  OF   0ABII7ST   OFFIOEBS.  63 

constitution  had  bestowed  all  executive  authority  on  the  pres- 
ident, it  could  evidently  only  mean,  all  the  executive  powers 
granted  by  the  constitution,  but  not  all  authority  which 
should,  according  to  any  political  theory  whatever,  or  accord- 
ing to  the  views  of  any  person  whatever,  belong  to  the  high- 
est possessor  of  the  executive  power.  But  the  constitution 
has  nothing  to  say  of  a  right  or  of  a  duty  of  the  president 
to  supervise  or  control  the  heads  of  departments  in  the  exer- 
cise of  the  rights  granted  them  by  law,  or  of  the  duties  im- 
posed upon  them.  Such  a  riglit  or  such  a  duty  could  be 
inferred  fi'om  the  clause,  "  to  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faith- 
fully executed,"  only  by  degrading  the  constitution  and  mak- 
ing it  a  deception  and  a  blind.  That  clause  "  means  noth- 
ing more  and  nothing  less  than  this,  that  if  resistance  is 
made  to  the  laws,  he  shall  take  care  that  resistance  shall 
cease."  ^  If  it  were  made  the  duty  of  the  president  to  enforce 
the  execution  of  the  laws  by  all  the  means  at  his  disposal,  in 
the  sense  in  which  he  understood  them,  the  republic  was 
turned  over,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  one  man. 

In  opposition  to  this  general  clause  touching  the  duties  of 
the  president,  there  is  another  much  more  strictly  formu- 
lated, from  which  it  is  entirely  clear  how  far  the  control  of 
the  president  over  the  official  action  of  the  heads  of  depart- 
ments or  of  any  other  executive  or  administrative  officer  ex- 
tends. Art.  I,  sec.  8,  par.  18,  reads:  Congress  shall  have 
power  "  to  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper 
for  carrying  into  execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all 
other  powers  vested  by  this  constitution  in  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  officer  thereol" 
Hence,  the  constitution  refers  the  president  entirely  and 
completely  to  the  laws,  gives  congress  alone  the  right  "  to 
make"  laws,  and  the  president  only  a  qualitative  veto. 

No  law  granted  the  president  a  right  of  control  over  all 

'  Clay's  Sp.,  n,  p.  190. 


64     JAOKSON's  ADMrNlSTEATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

official  action  of  the  heads  of  departments,  and  the  clause  in 
question  of  the  bank  law  did  not  mention  the  president. 
But  the  supreme  court  had,  indeed,  thirty  years  before, 
recognized  the  right  in  congress  *  to  impose  duties  by  law  on 
the  heads  of  departments,  in  relation  to  which  the  president 
had  no  "  constitutional  or  legal  discretion,"  and  in  relation 
to  which  their  acts,  not  "  his  acts,"  were  not  only  subject  to 
political  criticism  but  to  judicial  decree. 

The  heads  of  departments  are  not  such  determining  ele- 
ments in  the  governmental  organism  of  the  Union,  that  their 
views  on  questions  of  public  law  which  involve  important 
principles  can  exercise,  through  their  office,  a  decisive  influ- 
ence. Taney's  justification  of  the  order  of  the  26th  of  Sep- 
tember would  not,  therefore,  deserve  so  exhaustive  a  review, 
if  it  contained  only  his  views,  and  if  it  could  be  considered 

'"By  the  constitation  of  the  United  States,  the  president  is  invested 
with  certain  important  political  powers,  in  the  exercise  of  which  he  is  to 
ase  his  own  discretion,  and  is  accountable  only  to  his  country  in  his  polit- 
ical character,  and  to  his  own  conscience.  To  aid  him  in  the  performance 
of  these  duties,  he  is  authorized  to  appoint  certain  officers,  who  act  by  his 
authority  and  in  conformity  with  his  orders. 

"  In  such  cases  their  acts  are  his  acts;  and  whatever  opinion  maybe  en- 
tertained of  the  manner  in  which  executive  discretion  may  be  used,  still 
there  exists,  and  can  exist,  no  power  to  control  that  discretion.  The  sub- 
jects are  pohtical.  They  respect  the  nation,  not  individual  rights,  and  be- 
ing intrusted  to  the  executive,  the  decision  of  the  executive  is  conclusive. 
The  application  of  this  remark  will  be  perceived  by  adverting  to  the  act  of 
congress  for  establishing  the  department  of  foreign  affairs.  This  officer,  as 
his  duties  were  prescribed  by  that  act  (!),  is  to  conform  precisely  to  the 
will  of  the  president.  He  is  the  mere  organ  by  whom  that  will  is  commu- 
nicated. The  acts  of  such  an  officer,  as  an  officer,  can  never  be  examin- 
able by  the  courts. 

"  But  when  the  legislature  proceeds  to  impose  on  that  officer  other  du- 
ties; when  he  is  directed  peremptorily  to  perform  certain  acts;  when  the 
rights  of  individuals  ar6  dependent  on  the  performance  of  those  acts,  he  is 
so  far  the  officer  of  the  law;  is  amenable  to  the  laws  for  his  conduct;  and 
cannot  at  his  discretion  sport  away  the  vested  rights  of  others."  Marbury 
V.  Madison,  Cranch's  Rep.,  I,  pp.  165,  166;  Curtis,  I,  p.  380. 


CONGRESS   AND  THE    DEPOSITS.  65 

that  the  order  rea,lly  emanated  from  him.  "  I  want  to  know 
not  the  clerk  who  makes  the  writing,  but  the  individual  who 
dictates,"  said  Clay.  Taney  was  not  a  pliant  tool  nor  one  that 
acted  through  selfish  motives,  in  the  hands  of  Jackson,  as 
party  spirit  then  and  for  a  long  time  after  asserted  that  he 
liad.^  He  fully  shared  Jackson's  opinion  concerning  the 
bank,  and  even  seems  to  have  emphatically  urged  the  removal 
of  the  deposits  at  a  time  that  Jackson  was  still  in  doubt  on 
the  question.  But,  spite  of  this,  Jackson  was  the  real  origi- 
nator of  the  order,  and  Taney's  statement  of  reasons  of  the 
4th  of  December  was  only  a  repetition  of  the  document 
which  Jackson  had  read  before  his  cabinet  on  the  18th  of 
September.'  This  gives  the  matter  its  deeper  meaning. 
The  real  usurper  was  not  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  but 
the  president.  And  hence,  the  usurpation  was  not  simply 
the  assumption  of  a  definite  authority  not  granted  by  the 
laws.  The  process  of  reasoning  by  which  it  was  sought  to 
justify  it  changed  the  whole  relation  of  the  executive  to  the 
legislative  power,  appealed  in  questions  of  legislative  policy 
to  a  forum  unknown  to  the  constitution  and  the  laws,  one 
additional  to  and  above  congress,  and  raised  the  president 
above  the  laws,  inasmuch  as  it  kccorded  to  him  the  right  to 
absolve  officials  from  their  legal  responsibility  and  to  assume 
it  himself  by  referring  to  the  decisions  of  that  forum. 

Jackson  ascribed  the  disclaimer  by  congress  of  the  power 
of  removing  the  deposits  from  the  bank —  a  disclaimer  which 
surprised  him — to  an  "oversight,"  but  at  the  same  time  de- 
clared it  to  be  undoubted  that  that  power  was  conferred 
"  exclusively  "  on  the  secretary  of  the  treasury.  He,  how- 
ever, expressed  the  view,  much  more  directly  and  definitely 

'  The  complete  establisliment  of  this  is  almost  the  only  merit  of  Tyler's 
voluminous  biography  of  Taney.  See  my  review  of  the  work  in  Sybel'i 
Histor.  Zeitschrift,  1873. 

'  Naea,  XLV,  pp.  73-77. 
6 


66    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

than  Taney,  that  this  "  exclusively "  was  to  be  understood 
with  a  very  important  reservation.  He  declared  that  he 
honestly  lamented  this  "  oversight."  Said  he,  the  president 
would  be  glad  to  be  free  from  the  "  heavy  and  painful  re- 
sponsibility which  had  been  thereby  imposed  upon  him." 
He  reached  this  strange  conclusion  from  the  "  exclusively," 
in  the  same  way  as  Taney;  a  "power"  granted  to  "one  ex- 
ecutive department,"  evidently  imposed  the  "  responsibility  " 
of  the  exercise  of  that  power  on  "  the  executive  branch  of 
the  government."  Hence  he  was  "  called  upon  to  meet "  the 
question:  it  was  "bis  duty  to  decide." 

Jackson  did  not  continue  to  be  consistent  with  himself. 
He  expressed  the  hope  that  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
would  see  in  the  document  "  only  the  frank  and  respectful 
declarations  of  the  opinions  "  which  the  president  had  formed 
on  the  question,  "  and  not  a  spirit  of  dictation,  which  the 
president  would  be  as  careful  to  avoid  as  ready  to  resist." 
"  Far  be  it  from  him  to  expect  or  require  that  any  member 
of  the  cabinet  should,  at  his  request,  order  or  dictation,  do 
any  act  which  he  believes  unlawful,  or  in  his  conscience  con- 
demns." But  directly  after,  this  exposition  of  "  opinions  " 
is  closed  with  the  following  sentences :  "  The  president  again 
repeats  that  he  begs  his  cabinet  to  consider  the  proposed 
measures  as  his  own,  in  the  support  of  which  he  shall  re- 
quire no  one  of  them  to  make  a  sacrifice  of  opinion  or  prin- 
ciple. Its  responsibility  has  been  assumed  after  the  inost 
mature  deliberation  and  reflection.  .  .  .  Under  these 
convictions,  he  feels  that  a  measure  so  important  to  the 
American  people  cannot  be  commenced  too  soon,  .  .  . 
and  therefore  names  the  first  day  of  October  next  as  a  period 
proper  for  a  change  of  the  deposits." 

That  Jackson  honestly  believed  that  he  was  exercising  a 
right  which  fully  belonged  to  him,  is  certain.  On  the  many 
cases  in  which  he  exceeded  his  rightful  authority,  he  found 


SIGNIFIOANCE   OP  THE   QUESTION.  67 

his  real  justification  in  his  own  eyes — a  justification  which 
was  proof  against  all  attacks  —  in  his  own  judgment,  the 
correctness  of  which  he  never  doubted  himself,  and  in  the 
honesty  of  his  intentions.  Under  this  broad  shield,  a  states- 
man of  the  backwoodsman  type  might  bury  many  doubts 
as  to  the  law.  And  in  this  instance,  his  objects  were  cer- 
tainly important  enough  to  rather  drop  thfe  stubborn  Duane 
than  to  give  up  the  attainment  of  them.  He  "assumed  the 
responsibility"  of  the  removal  of  the  deposits  for  no  smaller 
reasons  than  because  it  was  "  necessary  to  preserve  the  morals 
of  the  people,  the  freedom  of  the  press,  and  the  purity  of 
the  elective  franchise."  But  who  had  made  the  president 
the  guardian  of  the  morals  of  the  people,  of  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  and  the. freedom  of  the  elective  franchise?  And 
not  only  against  the  bank,  but  against  congress,  which  had 
called  this  "  monster  "  into  being,  and  which  had  just  de- 
clared itself  in  favor  of  its  continuance,  against  the  direct 
representatives  of  the  people  and  the  statues,  did  Jackson  enter 
the  lists  as  the  defender  of  these  pillars  of  social  order  and 
free  political  life.  The  first  count  in  the  indictment  on 
which  the  people  had  once  passed  an  irrevocable  sentence  of 
condemnation  on  the  federalist  party,  was  the  violation  of 
the  freedom  of  the  press  by  the  sedition  law.  Now  the 
people  exulted  over  the  triumph  which  the  cause  of  liberty 
and  popular  sovereignty  celebrated,  because  Jackson  had 
asserted  the  claim  above  mentioned,  and  victoriously  fought 
it  through.  There  is  no  reason,  even  to-day,  why  the  warn- 
ing which  Clay  and  Webster  addressed  to  the  people  should 
be  scofied  at,'  even  if  they  ignored  the  economic  consequences 
of  Jackson's  bank  policy,  and  even  if  Clay's  question,  why 
the  president  did  not  likewise  assume  the  guardianship  of 
religion,  has  remained  objectless.     The  bank  struggle  has  a 

'  This  has  recently  occaned  again  in  the  "  North  American  Review  " 
January,  1873,  pp.  173,  174 


68    Jackson's  ADMINISTRATION  —  annexation  of  texas. 

permanent  political  significance,  far  surpassing  its  economic 
and  legal  importance;  and  this  significance  laj  in  the  ele- 
ments which  made  Jackson  able,  actually  and  successfully  to 
assert  his  claims,  in  conflict  both  with  the  constitution  and 
with  the  idea  of  republicapism,  to  a  position  between  con- 
gress and  the  people  as  patriarchal  ruler  of  the  republic. 

On  the  28th  of  March,  1834,  the  senate,  after  a  three 
months'  debate,  passed  the  following  resolution  by  a  vote  of 
26  against  20:  "  Eesolved,  That  the  president,  in  the  late  ex- 
ecutive proceedings  in  relation  to  the  public  revenue,  has  as- 
sumed upon  himself  authority  and  power  not  conferred  by 
the  constitution  and  laws,  but  in  derogation  of  both."  ^  Jack- 
son replied,  on  the  15th  of  April,  by  the  transmission  of  a 
"protest "  argued  at  length,  with  the  demand  that  it  should 
be  entered  on  the  journal  of  the  senate,*  Thereupon,  the 
senate,  on  the  7th  of  May,  by  a  vote  of  27  against  16,  passed 
a  series  of  resolutions  to  the  effect  that  the  protest  ascribed 
powers  to  the  president  irreconcilable  with  the  authority  of 
the  two  houses  of  congress,  and  with  the  constitution;  that 
it  was  an  infringement  of  the  privileges  of  the  senate  and 
should  not  be  entered  on  the  journal,  and  that  the  president 
did  not  have  the  right  to  send  the  senate  a  protest  against 
any  of  its  acts.^  This  new  wrangle  was  brought  to  a  close  on 
the  16th  of  January,  1837,  by  a  resolution  of  the  senate,  passed 
by  a  vote  of  twenty- four  against  nineteen,  that  the  resolution 
of  the  28th  of  March,  1834,  should  be  expunged  from  the 
journal  of  the  senate.* 

In  my  opinion,  no  definite  legally  unassailable  answer  can 
be  given  to  the  two  questions  which  were  directly  in  dispute: 
whether  the  senate  had  the  right  to  give  expression  in  a  res- 
olution to  a  formal  censure  of  the  president,  and  whether  the 

'  Deb,  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  301. 
*Ibid.,  XII,  pp,  308-318. 
•Ibid,,  XII,  p.  363. 
•Ibid.,  XIII,  pp,  155,  156. 


THE   EXPUNGING    RESOLUTION.  69 

president  had  the  right  to  enter  a  protest  against  such  a 
resohition  or  against  any  resolution  whatever  of  the  senate;' 
and  for  the  reason  that  the  constitution  furnishes  no  sure 
basis  for  their  solution.*  Legal  arguments  are  here  entirely 
east  into  the  shade  by  political  arguments,  and  hence  the  an- 
swer to  the  question  of  law  is  strongly  influenced  by  the  po- 
litical views  of  the  person  judging.  Only  one  thing  seems 
to  me  to  be  free  from  all  doubt,  that  the  senate  grossly  vio- 
lated the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  constitution  when  it  resolved, 
in  1837,  to  expunge  the  resolutions  of  1834:  from  the  journal. 
The  constitution  provides:  "  Each  house  shall  keep  a  journal 
of  its  proceedings."  What  has  taken  place  in  one  of  the 
houses  of  congress  and  is  entered  upon  its  records  is  part  of 
the  histoiy  of  the  country,  and  no  one  is  authorized  to  alter 
one  jot  or  tittle  of  it.  The  senate,  in  1837,. had  the  same 
right  to  express  its  views  that  it  had  in  1834.  No  one  could 
restrain  it  from  making  the  declaration  that  the  majority,  in 
the  resolution  of  the  28th  of  March,  had  exceeded  the  consti- 
tutional authority  of  the  senate.  Between  such  a  declaration 
and  the  expunging  of  tlie  resolution,  there  was  evidently  more 
than  a  formal  difference.  The  former  would  have  been  the 
giving  and  recording  of  a  dissenting  judgment;  the  latter 
was  an  entirely  unworthy  proceeding — asmitingof  itself  in 
the  face  by  the  senate,  inasmuch  as  it  thereby  dragged  its 
own  action  into  the  arena  of  common  party  scuffling.  The 
curse  of  Jackson's  administration  may  be  summed  in  a  few 
words:  it  systematically  undermined  the  public  conscious- 

'  For  the  right  of  the  senate,  Webster's  axguments  (Works,  IV,  pp.  112, 
1 13)  are  certainly  the  weightiest. 

* "  It  is  true  that  no  such  resolution  ever  passed  before;  it  is  also  true 
that  no  such  resolution  ought  ever  to  pass  that  body.  But  precisely  similar 
resolutions  have  been  introduced  and  debated  on  more  than  one  occasion. 
.  .  .  The  parties  in  the  senate  have  always  voted  for  or  against  these 
resolutions  according  as  they  supported  or  opposed  the  president."  Mem. 
of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IX,  pp.  130,  131. 


"70    Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  op  texas. 

ness  of  right,  and  diminished  the  respect  of  the  people  for  the 
government.  In  what  concerns  the  last,  the  Benton  "  ex- 
punging resolution"  was  the  last  high  card  played  by  the 
Jacksonians. 

Jackson's  personal  guilt  in  this  most  essential  result  of  his 
administration,  was  not  occasioned  so  much  by  individual 
determinate  actions  as  by  his  conception  of  the  position  of 
the  president  to  the  other  factors  of  the  government,  and  to 
the  "  people." 

The  protest  in  the  first  place  contained  a  reiteration  of  the 
essential  points  of  the  document  of  the  18th  of  September 
on  the  question  of  law,  in  part  more  definitely  and  severely 
expressed.  Jackson  declared  very  directly,  that  not  only  no 
relation  between  the  president  and  the  secretary  of  the  treas- 
ury had  been  created  by  the  bank  law,in  reference  to  the  de- 
posits, difierent  from  that  which  obtained  between  them  gen- 
erally, but  that  congress  could  not,  in  any  respect  whatever, 
have  taken  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  from  the  supervision 
and  control  of  the  president,  without  becoming  guilty  of  a 
usurpation  of  the  powers  of  the  executive.  If  there  were 
"sufficient  reasons"  for  the  removal  of  the  deposits  —  that 
is,  if  the  president  was  of  opinion  there  were,  which  was 
precisely  the  same  thing,  according  to  Jackson  —  it  was  the 
"  legal  duty "  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  to  order  their 
removal;  and  if  the  secretary  did  not  do  so,  the  president 
had  to  comply  with  his  "sworn  duty"  to  execute  the  laws; 
that  is,  to  look  for  another  secretary  of  the  treasury  who 
would  do  his  duty.  This  argument  had  one  merit,  and  that 
was  decisive  of  the  issue  of  the  controversy:  it  seemed  irref- 
utable to  the  majority  of  the  masses. 

The  protest,  however,  adduced  another  proof  of  the  legal 
impossibility  of  curtailing  the  right  of  control  over  the  de- 
posits claimed  by  the  president,  or  even  of  taking  it  away. 
All  national  property,  and  of  course,  also,  national  money, 


Jackson's  claims.  71 

Jackson  claimed  were  always  under  the  guardianship  of  the 
executive  power;  that  is,  in  the  hands  of  oflBcials  nominated 
by,  and  responsible  to  the  president,  and,  therefore,  had 
always  to  remain  in  such  hands,  "  unless  the  constitution  be 
changed."  Congress  could  not  install  any  one  in  a  position 
whose  appointment  did  not  devolve  on  the  president,  and 
who  should  not  be  responsible  to  him.  The  provision  of 
the  constitution  which  confides  the  property  of  the  govern- 
ment to  the  guardianship  of  the  executive  is  not  pointed 
out;^  but  especially  was  no  reason  given  why  it  followed 
directly  from  the  president's  right  of  nomination,  that  the 
officials  nominated  by  him  were  responsible  to  him  in  all 
things.  It  was  impossible  to  claim  that  it  lay  in  the  nature 
of  the  case.  Even  Jackson  never  pretended  that  the  judges 
nominated  by  him  were  responsible  to  him.  His  proof  here, 
as  in  so  many  other  instances,  was  the  boldest  assumption. 
The  protest  declares:  "The  power  of  removal,  which,  like 
that  of  appointment,  is  an  original  executive  power,  is  left 
unchecked  by  the  constitution  in  relation  to  all  executive 
officers  for  whose  conduct  the  president  is  responsible,  while 
it  is  taken  from  him  in  relation  to  judicial  officers,  for  whose 
acts  he  is  not  responsible." 

A  more  remarkable  sentence  is  scarcely  to  be  found  in  an 
American  document.  If  there  was  any  principle  of  consti- 
tutional law  which  had  hitherto  been  recognized,  not  only 
by  all  parties  but,  we  may  say,  by  all  citizens,  without  any 
reservation,  it  was  the  principle  that  the  Federal  government 

'  Webster,  in  his  speech  of  the  7th  of  May,  1834,  mentions  a  law  of 
May,  1800,  which  provides  for  the  depositing  of  the  custom  house  bonda 
in  the  then  United  States  Bank,  or  in  its  branch  banks,  without  reserving 
any  rights  whatever  over  them  to  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  or  to  any 
other  official.  (Works,  IV,  p.  130.)  It  may  be  that  the  date  is  not  cor- 
rectly given,  for  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  the  law  in  the  Statutes  at 
Large.  Such  a  law,  however,  would  be  unquestionably  constitutional,  but 
it  would  not  have  been  reconcilable  with  Jackson's  doctrine. 


72    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of.tbxas. 

possessed  only  those  powers  which  were  granted  to  it.  Now 
the  president  appealed  to  original  prerogatives  of  the  ex- 
ecutive power,  part  of  which  were  left  to  it  by  the  consti- 
tution and  part  taken  away.  What  authority  is  there  which 
might  not  be  rightly  claimed  by  the  legislative  or  judicial 
power  as  well  as  by  the  executive,  if  all  that  was  needed 
was  to  assume  that  that  authority  originally  belonged  to  it, 
and  it  was  then  proved  that  it  was  not  taken  away  by  the 
constitution;  and  this  whether  it  was  granted  by  the  consti- 
tution or  not?  Where,  on  this  supposition,  would  be  the 
rights  of  the  states,  the  freedom  of  the  citizen,  the  exact 
lines  of  demarcation  between  the  different  powers  of  govern- 
ment? Where  would  the  whole  system  of  constitutional 
law  be?  The  constitution  is  not  the  faultless  masterpiece 
whicli  Americans,  for  the  most  part,  esteem  it  to  be;  but  so 
monstrous  a  chaos  of  law,  as  would  have  resulted  from  the 
recognition  of  this  new  method  of  determining  constitutional 
law,  the  constitution  certainly  did  not  create. 

And  yet  it  was  the  inventor  of  this  new  method  who 
claimed  that  it  was  his  duty,  as  it  was  his  intention,  to  be 
the  defender  ^ar  excellence  of  the  constitution.  This  pecu- 
liar attitude  of  the  president  towards  the  constitution,  it  was 
claimed,  resulted  "  from  the  very  nature  of  his  [the  presi- 
dent's] olBBce,"  but  the  founders  of  the  republic  had  given  it 
"  a  peculiar  solemnity  and  force "  by  means  of  the  oath 
which  the  president  had  to  take  in  entering  on  his  office. 

The  views  entertained  towards  the  end  of  the  last  century 
in  the  United  States,  as  well  as  in  the  rest  of  the  world  with 
a  western  civilization,  on  the  relation  of  the  "executive 
power"  to  the  free  progressive  development  of  nations, 
scarcely  permit  us  to  doubt,  that  the  guiding  thought  in  the 
prescribing  of  this  oath -was  not  so  much  a  desire  to  place 
the  constitution  under  the  special  guardianship  of  the  presi- 
dent against  internal  enemies,  as  it  was  to  protect  the  people 


Jackson's  pbetensions.  73 

against  the  attacks  of  the  president  on  the  constitution  itself, 
so  far  as  it  was  possible  for  an  oath  to  do  this.     In  the  Phil- 
adelphia convention  as  well  as  in  the  ratification  convention, 
it  was  strongly  m-ged  that  the  executive  power  should  be 
confided  to  a  board,  because  the  history  of  all  times  and 
nations  taught  to  what  dangers  liberty  is  exposed  when  too 
much  power  is  placed  in  the  hands  of  one  man.     Whatever 
the  American  people  may  have  learned  later,  by  sad  experi- 
ence, of  the  tendency  of  the  legislature  to  exceed  its  legiti- 
mate authority,  they  then  applied  the  principle  of  the  mis- 
trust of  government,  which  is  the  condition  precedent  of  the 
perpetuation  of  freedom,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  executive 
power.     Only  the  most  intelligent  then  recognized  that  the 
danger  impended  as  much,  or  even  more,  from  another  quar- 
ter, and  it  was  only  by  pointing  to  the  experience  of  the  war 
of  independence  that  they  succeeded  in  having  the  executive 
power  made  really  coordinate  with  the  judicial,and  especially 
^vith  the  legislative.     But  it  never  occurred  even  to  them  to 
make  the  president  the  defender  of  the  integrity  of  the  con- 
stitution as  against  congress.     That  was  the  sphere  of  the 
judicial  power.     The  competency  of  the  president,  in  this 
respect,  was  limited  to  his  qualitative  veto.     But  Jackson 
claimed  a  right  to  oppose  the  alleged  exceeding  of  its  consti- 
tutional authority  by  the  senate  not  only  in  this  determinate 
instance;  he  set  himself  above  the  senate  and  between  the 
"people"  and  the  other  two  factors  of  government.     The 
pi-esident,  he  declares,  is  "  the  direct  representative  of  the 
American  people,  elected  by  the  people  and  responsible  to 
them,"  but  the  senate  was  "a  body  not  directly  amenable  to 
the  people."    As  the  representative  of  the  people,  theref(»re, 
he  owed  it  to  their  representatives  to  oppose  the  violation  of 
their  constitutional  prerogatives  by  the  senate,  and  it  was 
his  "  fixed  determination  to  return  to  the  people  unimpaired 
the  sacred  trust  'they  had'  confided  to  his  charge  —  to  heal 


74   Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  wounds  of  the  constitution  and  preserve  it  from  further 
violation." 

The  constitution  knows  only  a  president  as  the  bearer  o^ 
executive  power;  of  a  "  direct  representative  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  "it  knows  nothing.^  Hence,  also,  it  knows  noth- 
ing of  an  election  of  the  president  by  "  the  people."  It  is 
the  intention  of  the  constitution,  that  the  electors  should 
not  be  mere  ciphers,  but  the  only  real  choosers  of  the  presi- 
dent. Besides  this,  it  does  not  allow  the  electors  to  be  sim- 
ply chosen  by  the  people,  but  by  the  people  organized  in 
stjites  and  as  they  are  represented  in  the  popular  house  of 
congress,  giving  two  further  electors  for  their  representation 
in  the  upper  house.  Finally,  the  constitution  entirely  ignored 
the  president's  responsibility  to  the  "people."  If  it  was 
Jackson's  intention  to  speak  only  of  political  responsibility, 
nothing  could  be  objected  thereto.  But  this  responsibility 
was  shared  by  every  other  political  personage  with  him,  and, 
above  all  things,  no  rights  could  be  deduced  from  it.  Fur- 
ther, such  a  political  responsibility  could  not  be  called  a 
direct  one.  In  this  expression  was  contained  the  idea  that 
the  people  were  the  legal  forum  which,  in  the  last  instance, 
had  to  judge  of  the  political  acts  of  the  president.  But  on 
such  a  right  of  the  people,  also,  the  constitution  is  silent. 
The  only  forum  before  which  it  cites  the  president  to  account 

'  What  again  made  this  falsification  of  the  constitution  so  acceptable  to 
the  masses  was  the  thoroughly  democratic  character  of  the  doctrine.  If, 
by  means  of  tliis  character,  the  people  were  to  be  permanently  won  over 
to  them,  the  future  prospects  of  the  constitutional  state  were  sad  enough 
How  easy  a  thing  it  would  be  to  operate  against  all  constitutional  law  if 
this  doctrine  were  taken  as  admitted  premises,  one  illustration  ma,y  show: 
liCvy  Woodbuiy,  member  of  the  cabinet  under  Jackson  and  under  Van 
Buren,  and  later  judge  of  the  supreme  court,  says,  in  a  speech  made  on 
the  19th  of  October,  1841,  in  Faneuil  hall:  "Tell  them  [the  whigsj  to 
keep  off  profane  hands  from  destroying  the  veto  power  in  the  constitution, 
which  they  threaten.  It  is  the  people's  ( !)  tribunative  prerogative,  speaking 
again  through  their  [\ )  executive."    Writings  of  L.  Woodbury,  I,  p.  571. 


CHAItACTEK   OP  JACKSON.  75 

for  his  political  acts  is  the  senate,  when  the  representatives 
have  preferred  an  impeachment  charge  against  him.  In- 
deed, the  constitution  does  not  know  the  "people"  at  all,  in 
the  sense  in  which  Jackson  uses  the  term.  It  creates  legal 
relations,  but  it  does  not  overthrow  the  law  by  elevating 
every  majority  of  those  possessed  of  the  right  to  vote,  no 
matter  how  constituted,  above  tlie  law,  by  making  their  will 
the  law.  In  the  United  States,  indeed,  the  "  people  "  are  the 
one  original  source  of  law,  but  it  is  the  people  in  their  en- 
tirely definite,  aggregate,  political,  that  is,  constitutional 
organization, that  is  meant  here.  Any  other  "people"  as  an 
independent  source  of  law,  as  a  legal  political  forum,  is  not 
only  unknown  to  the  constitution,  but,  if  admitted  by  it, 
would  be  its  destruction;  for  it  is  the  purpose  of  that  instru- 
ment to  create  an  unarbitrary  state,  while  such  a  "  people " 
is  the  negation  of  the  unarbitrary  state.  It  was  to  the 
"people "  in  this  anti-state  sense  of  the  term  that  Jackson 
appealed  in  all  his  controversies  about  his  rights.  In  other 
words:  the  holder  of  the  executive  power  made  the  subordi- 
nation of  the  state  to  society  the  determining  principle  of 
the  republic  which,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  should 
have  been  an  unarbitrary  law-respecting  state.  The  protest 
also  repeatedly  substituted  "public  opinion"  for  "people." 
Webster,  therefore,  was  not  guilty  of  exaggeration  when  he 
said  that  the  reasoning  of  the  president  amounted  to  claim- 
ing that  it  was  permitted  to  him  to  do  whatever  public 
opinion  sanctioned;  or,  to  express  it  more  simply:  that  it 
was  permitted  to  him  to  do  whatever  he  could  do. 

That  Jackson  did  not  permit  himself  in  his  whole  active 
official  life  to  bo  led  by  this  principle,  but,  like  his  predeces- 
sors, generally  kept  within  legal  limits,  is  not  of  decisive 
importance.  His  administration  received  its  typical  char- 
acter from  the  fact  that  he  set  up  the  principle  above  referred 
to,  actually  pursued  it  in  some  questions  of  the  greatest  im- 


76    Jackson's  administbation  — annexation  of  texas. 

portance,  and  that  his  action  in  the  premises  obtained  the 
sanction  of  the  ''  people."  This  was  reason  enough  to  con- 
jure the  people  in  the  most  solemn  and  impressive  manner 
to  pause  and  soberly  inquire  to  what  end  this  road  would 
necessarily  lead  them.  The  leaders  of  the  opposition,  in- 
deed, selected  the  most  absurd  means  to  accomplish  this, 
when  they  held  up  to  the  country  the  bugbear  of  the  erec- 
tion of  a  tyranny  which  would  soon,  perhaps,  not  allow  even 
the  empty  forms  of  popular  sovereignty  to  exist.  They 
mistook  the  symptoms  for  that  which  was  essential;  and 
they,  just  as  little  as  the  masses  of  the  people,  recognized 
the  deeper  causes  of  the  symptoms.  They,  too,  swam  in  the 
general  stream,  even  if  they  swam  only  on  the  borders,  ter- 
rified at  the  rapidity  with  which  those  were  carried  onward 
who  were  impelled  by  the  force  at  its  center. 

No  one  expected  to  see  Jackson  proposed  a  third  time  a^a 
a  candidate  for  the  presidency.^  "With  his  exit,  the  "  rule  of 
one  man  "  had  also  come  to  an  end.  It  may  be  that  his  in- 
fluence in  making  his  candidate  for  the  succession  the  party 
candidate  went  far  enough.  But  whoever  his  successor 
might  be,  Jackson  could  not  transmit  his  influence  to  him 
as  an  inheritance.  In  a  democracy,  there  can  never  be  at 
the  same  time,  and  almost  never  immediately  following 
each  other,  two  personages  to  whom  the  people  place  them- 
selves in  the  attitude  that  the  majority  of  the  great  crowd 
did  to  Andrew  Jackson  in  the  United  States.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  democracies,  idols  are  never  apotheosized  for  their 
own  sake;  the  great  crowd  worship  themselves  in  them. 
Hence  the  heir  of  Jackson's  supremacy  was  not  one  man, 
but  the  great  crowd.     The  great  crowd,  however,  can  never 

'  Here  and  there,  indeed,  such  an  idea  found  expression,  but  it  did  not 
take  root  deeply  enough  among  the  democratic  politicians  to  make  the 
whigs  look  upon  it,  for  a  moment,  as  a  contingency  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration. 


TEADING  poLinciAira.  77 

actually  assert  their  supremacy,  except  for  moments  of  time, 
in  great  political  communities;  and  this  is  esjjecially  so  in 
such  as  are  so  peculiarly  organized  as  the  United  States. 
The  idea  that  since  Jackson's  time  the  supreme  power  has 
in  reality  Iain  in  the  hands  of  the  masses,  is  a  piece  of  decep- 
tion as  great  as  it  is  pernicious;  and  yet  it  is  one  which  the 
permanent  heirs  of  Jackson's  power  have,  in  great  part, 
practiced  even  to  the  present  day  on  the  masses  of  the 
American  people.  The  undeniable  and  sadly  plain  fact  is, 
that  since  that  time  the  people  have  begun  to  exchange  the 
leadership  of  a  small  nnmber  of  statesmen  and  politicians 
of  a  higher  order  for  the  rule  of  an  ever  increasing  crowd  of 
politicians  of  high  and  low  degree,  down  even  to  the  pot- 
house politician  and  the  common  thief,  in  the  protecting 
mantle  of  demagogism.  When  people  from  the  region  lying 
between  the  limits  of  society  and  the  house  of  correction 
obtained  a  controlling  influence  in  politics,  this  at  first  ap- 
peared as  the  consequence  of  an  unfortunate  condition  of 
local  affairs.  And  that  politics  became  a  profession  in  which 
mediocrity — on  an  ever  descending  scale — dominated,  and 
moral  laxity  became  the  rule,  if  not  a  requisite,  people  re- 
fused to  consider  an  unfortunate  condition  so  long  as  a  life 
devoted  to  acquisition  approached  nearer  to  the  goal  of  its 
satisfaction.  Live  and  let  live,had  become  a  general  maxim 
to  such  an  extent  that  the  politicians  marvelled  at  even  the 
uprising  in  which  the  people  tore  to  pieces  the  bridle  to 
which  they  had  been  so  long  used,  when  it  looked  as  if  they 
were  to  be  ridden  into  the  abyss  ^  to  which  they  had,  since 
the  origin  of  the  republic,  in  part,  been  drawn  nearer,  and 
to  which,  in  part,  they  had  nearer  and  nearer  glided. 

A  popular  state  in  which  the  generality  drops  into  a  dolce 
far  niente  in  relation  to  politics,  seeing  in  the  election  of 
their  legislators,  in  universal  suffrage  and  the  like,  in  and 
'I860  and  1861. 


78   Jackson's  administkation  — annexation  of  texas. 

of  themselves,  the  guaranties  of  freedom,  is  ever  on  a  de- 
clivitous path;  one  on  which  it  is  always  diflScult  to  reverse 
one's  course,  and  on  which  this,  even  under  the  most  favor- 
able circumstances,  can  be  done  only  gradually.  The  con- 
dition precedent  of  a  healthy  popular  state  is  not  rights, 
but  the  reasonable  assumption  of  duties  by  means  of  which 
rights  become  reasonable  means  to  the  attainment  of  the 
ends  of  the  state  and  of  society.  Popular  sovereignty,  in 
the  sense  that  not  only  the  general  direction  of  politics  is 
determined  by  the  will  of  the  majority,  but  that  this  will 
minutely  prescribes  the  conduct  of  the  factors  of  government 
in  the  questions  that  arise  in  any  manner,  in  the  form  of 
"  public  opinion,"  for  instance,  would  be  not  only  a  dreadful 
condition  of  things;  it  is  impossible.  But  when,  in  a  popu- 
lar state,  politics  become  a  despised  trade,  the  state  is  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  question  of  life  or  death;  for  to  the 
extent  that  this  has  really  happened,^  self-government  is  only 


'  This  is  even  yet  the  case  in  the  United  States  to  a  much  smaller  ex- 
tent than  persons  of  superficial  information  commonly  believe.  To  be 
called  a  "politician,"  is,  indeed,  as  great  an  offense  as  to  be  called  a 
"  Jew,"  in  certain  circles.  But  it  is  only  the  mass  of  politicians,  not  poli- 
tics, that  are  despised.  Men  like  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Schurz,  Trum- 
bull, etc.,  are  yet  held  in  high  estimation,  and  the  people  are  proud  of 
them.  When  I  first  wrote  these  lines,  Chaxles  Sumner  was  still  Uving,  and 
I  had  placed  his  name  after  that  of  Adams.  I  may  here  cite  a  few  words 
from  Schurz's  eulogy  on  Sumner,  pronounced  at  Boston.  They  are  not 
mere  rhetorical  phrases,  but  correctly  describe  the  real  attitude  of  the  peo- 
ple towards  such  pohticians:  "When  you,  Mr.  Mayor,  in  the  name  of 
the  city  government  of  Boston,  invited  me  to  interpret  that  which  millions 
think  and  feel,  I  thanked  you  for  the  proud  privilege  you  had  conferred 
upon  me,  and  the  invitation  appealed  so  irresistibly  to  my  friendship  for 
the  man  we  had  lost,  that  I  could  not  decline  it.  And  yet,  the  thought 
struck  me  that  you  might  have  prepared  a  greater  triumph  to  his  memory 
had  you  summoned,  not  me,  his  friend,  but  one  of  those  who  had  stood 
a,gainst  him  in  the  struggles  of  his  life,  to  bear  testimony  to  Charles  Sum- 
ner's virtues.  There  are  many  among  them  to-day  to  whose  sense  of  jus- 
tice you  might  have  safely  confided  the  office,  which  to  me  is  a  task  of 
love." 


EFFECT    OF    JACKSOn's   ADMINISTEATION.  79 

a  shadow  without  substance;   but  a  healthy  popular  state 
without  real  self-government  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 

But  the  process  through  which  the  life  of  a  nation  goes  is 
not  measured  by  days  or  by  a  few  years.  In  the  case  of  a 
people  who  bear  within  themselves  the  conditions  necessary 
to  the  building  up  of  a  healthy  popular  state  in  a  high  de- 
gree, and  who  have  already,  in  part,  made  such  a  state  an 
actuality,  decades,  even  in  the  most  unfavorable  case,  must 
elapse  before  they  decline  politically  to  such  an  extent  that  a 
broad  chasm  separates  their  social  from  their  political  life, 
and  before  an  organized  band  of  trading  politicians  can  be- 
come completely  master  of  them.  The  rapid  and  universal 
decline  of  a  healthy  political  spirit,  the  first  clear  symptom 
of  which  was  the  election  of  Jackson  twice  to  the  presidency, 
and  which  was  greatly  promoted  by  his  administration,  caused 
the  growing  influence  of  the  real  trading  politicians,  with 
their  bread-and-butter  principles,  to  take  the  appearance  at 
first  of  something  almost  accidental.  The  greatest  immedi- 
ate gain  from  this  revolution  in  the  condition  of  affairs, 
which  was  being  accomplished,  was  made  by  those  who  knew 
how  to  employ  these  elements  in  their  service.  The  shallow- 
ing, materializing,  demoralizing  transformation  of  the  Amer- 
ican democracy,  for  which  a  broad  path  was  paved  by  Jack- 
son's administration,  first  found  its  most  disastrous  conse- 
quences in  the  hands  of  the  southern  states,  by  which  it  was 
turned  to  account  in  the  promotion  of  the  cause  of  slavery. 


80    Jackson's  administeation — ai^nexation  of  texas. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   ABOLITIONISTS  AND   THE   SLAVERY  QUESTION  IN 
CONGRESS. 

While  the  reign  of  Andrew  Jackson  paved  the  way  on 
which  the  slave-holding  interest  ascended  to  the  zenith  of 
its  supremacy  over  the  Union,  there  arose,  at  the  same  time, 
in  the  body  of  the  abolitionists,  the  enemy  which  under- 
mined the  firm  ground  under  the  feet  of  that  same  slave- 
holding  interest. 

The  expression,  "  abolition  of  slavery,"  is  to  be  met  with 
even  before  the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  But  the  word 
"  abolitionism,"  as  descriptive  of  a  definite  political  pro- 
gramme, occurs  for  the  first  time  in  this  period.  When 
Goodell,  Wilson  and  others  frequently  speak  of  the  older  anti- 
slavery  societies  as  "  abolition  societies,"  their  language  only 
seems  to  render  the  understanding  of  the  development  of 
the  slavery  question  more  difiicult.  Those  older  anti-slavery 
societies  had  simply  a  programme  of  action  based  mainly  on 
humanitarian  motives.  The  history  of  the  origin  of  the 
abolitionists,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  political  process  of  re- 
action; although,  with  the  peculiar  double  nature  of  the 
slavery  question,  for  reasons  not  far  to  seek,  its  moral  side 
first  became  the  basis  of  operation. 

Tlie  debates  on  the  Missouri  question  had  called  forth 
reflections  here  and  there  which  could  not  be  smothered  by 
any  legislative  compact.  People  at  the  north  had  not  for- 
gotten the  manner  in  which  the  so-called  slavery  compro- 
mises had  been  wrested  from  the  constitution  by  the  south. 
Its  obstinate  aut  —  aut  in  the  Philadelphia  convention  was, 
in  great  part,  reduced  to  the  same  motives  of  action  which 


THE   FIKST   ABOLITIONISTS.  81 

were  the  decisive  ones  in  the  question  of  the  representation 
of  the  smaller  states ;  the  southern  states  wanted  generally 
to  insure  to  themselves  an  eqnal  weight  in  the  government 
of  the  Union,  and  therefore  could  not  completely  renounce 
the  representation  of  their  slaves.  The  idea  of  any  special 
jeopardy  of  the  slave-holding  interest  was  much  farther  from 
their  minds.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  people  began  to  per- 
ceive with  horror  that  the  rule  of  slavery  over  the  slave- 
holders threatened  to  become  as  absolute  as  the  rule  of  the 
latter  over  their  slaves.  But,  after  the  storm  had  blown 
over,  most  of  them  again  found  rest  in  the  consideration, 
that  submission  to  the  law  was  both  a  Christian  and  a  citi' 
zen's  duty,  and  that  the  nature  of  the  Union  absolved  the 
north  of  all  responsibility  for  the  slavery-sins  of  the  south. 
But  not  all  were  satisfied  with  this.  To  object  to  what  polit- 
ical sages  taught  concerning  constitutional  law  in  the  matter 
of  the  slavery  question,  "did  not  at  first  enter  their  minds. 
Their  rights  as  citizens  they  first  submitted  to  an  independ- 
ent examination,  when  it  was  sought  to  prevent  their  per- 
forming their  duties  as  men  and  Christians,  as  they  under- 
stood them.  The  blow  with  which  the  south  struck  the 
north  down,  woke  up  both  the  religious  and  political  con- 
science of  the  people  even  where  such  an  effect  was  lesist  ex- 
pected. The  powerful  and  the  wise  were  felled  to  the  ground, 
and  from  the  little  and  weak  there  rose  up  men  who,  with 
the  weapons  of  Christian  morality,  resumed  the  battle  un- 
daunted. As  missionaries,  beseeching  and  exhorting  men 
to  do  that  which  they  professed  with  their  lips,  the  first  abo- 
litionists entered  on  their  career.  People  made  martyrs  of 
them,  and  martyrdom  transformed  them  into  agitators,  with 
the  indomitable  energy  of  religious  fanaticism. 

Tlie  immediate  precursor,  and,  in   a  certain   sense,  the 
father  of  the  abolitionists,  was  Benjamin  Lundy,  a  Quaker, 
bom  in  New  Jersey.     In  Wheeling,  West  Yirginia,  where 
6 


82      JiCKSON's  ADMINISTEATION AITNEXATION*  OF  TEXAS. 

he  learned  the  saddler's  trade,  he  had  ample  opportunity  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  horrors  of  slavery,  as  great  car- 
goes of  slaves,  on  their  way  to  the  southern  states,  frequently 
passed  the  place.  Lundy  had  been  endeavoring  for  some 
years  to  awaken  an  active  interest  among  his  neighbors  in 
the  hard  lot  of  the  slaves,  when  the  Missouri  question  brought 
him  to  the  resolve  to  consecrate  his  whole  life  to  their  cause. 
In  1821,  he  began  to  publish  the  Genius  of  Universal  Eman- 
cipation, which  is  to  be  considered  the  first  abolition  organ. 
The  nineteenth  century  can  scarcely  point  to  another  in- 
stance in  which  the  command  of  Christ  to  leave  all  things 
and  follow  him,  was  so  literally  construed  and  followed. 
Lundy  gave  up  his  flourishing  business,  took  leave  of  his  wife 
and  of  his  two  dearly  beloved  children,  and  began  a  restless, 
wandering  life,  to  arouse  consciences  everywhere  to  a  deeper 
understanding  of  the  sin  and  curse  of  slavery.'  In  the 
autumn  of  1829,  he  obtained,  as  associate  publisher  of  his 
sheet,  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  a  young  litterateur,  born  in 
Newburyport,  Massachusetts,  who,  from  the  position  of  a 
poor  apprentice  to  a  tradesman,  rose  to  be  a  type-setter,  and 
fi'om  being  a  type-setter  to  be  a  journalist. 

The  removal  of  Garrison  from  New  England  to  Baltimore, 
where  Lundy  was  then  publishing  the  Genius,  was  an  event 
pregnant  with  consequences.  Garrison  had  long  been  a 
zealous  enemy  of  slavery,  but  had  hitherto  seen  the  right 
way  of  doing  away  with  the  evil  in  the  efibrts  of  the  coloni- 

'  He  says,  himself,  in  April,  1830,  in  an  appeal  to  the  public:  "  I  have, 
within  the  period  above  mentioned  [ten  years],  sacrificed  several  thousand 
dollars  of  my  own  hard  earnings,  have  traveled  upwards  of  five  thousand 
miles  on  foot,  and  more  than  twenty  thousand  in  other  ways;  have  visited 
nineteen  states  of  this  Union,  and  held  more  than  two  hundred  public  meet- 
ings— have  performed  two  voyages  to  the  West  Indies,  by  which  means 
tiie  liberation  of  a  considerable  number  of  slaves  has  been  effected,  and,  I 
hope,  the  way  paved  for  the  enlargement  of  many  more."  Groodell,  Slavery 
and  Anti-Slavery,  p.  386. 


LUNDY  AND  GAEBISON.  83 

zation  society.    What  he  now  saw  of  slavery  and  its  effects 
with  his  own  eyes,  produced  a  complete  revolution  in  his 
views  in  a  few  months.     He  not  only  recognized  the  impos- 
sibility of  preventing  the  extension  of  slavery  by  colonizing 
the  free  negroes  in  Africa,  to  say  nothing  of  gradually  doing 
away  with  it  altogether,  but  he  became  convinced  also  that 
the  leading  spirits  of  the  colonization  society  purposely 
sought  to  induce  the  philanthropists  of  the  north  to  enter 
on  a  wrong  course,  in  the  interests  of  slavery.     Hence  his 
own  profession  of  faith  was,  henceforth,  "immediate  and 
unconditional  emancipation."    His  separation  from  the  more 
moderate  Lundy,  which  was  rendered  unavoidable  by  this 
course,  was  hastened  by  an  outside  occurrence.     The  cap- 
tain of  a  ship  from  New  England  took  on  board  at  Balti- 
more a  cargo  of  slaves  destined  for  New  Orleans.     Garrison 
denounced  him,  on  that  account,  with  passionate  violence. 
The  matter  was  carried  before  the  court,  and  he  was  sen- 
tenced to  prison  and  to  pay  a  money  fine  for  publishing  a 
libelous  article,  and  for  criminally  inciting  slaves  to  insur- 
rection.    After  an  imprisonment  of  seven  weeks,  his  fine 
was  paid  by  a  New  York  philanthropist,  Arthur  Tappan, 
and  Garrison  left  the  city  to  spread  his  convictions  by  means 
of  public  lectures  through  New  England.     Although  his 
success  was  not  very  encouraging,  he,  in  January,  1831, 
established  a  paper  of  his  own  in  Boston,  known  as  The 
Liberator.     He  was  not  only  its  publisher  and  sole  writer 
for  it,  but  he  had  to  be  his  own  printer  and  carrier..    His 
only  assistant  was  a  negro.     The  issuing  of  the  paper  did 
not  become  known  to  H.  G.  Otis,  mayor  of  Boston,  till  Sep- 
tember, 1831,  and  even  after  seeking  more  accurate  informa- 
tion concerning  it,  he  could  not  discover  any  person  who 
took  it.     He  did  not  even  do  Garrison  the  honor  of  men- 
tioning him  by  name.'     "The  tide  is  entirely  in  one  direc- 

>  In  an  answer  to  a  lawyer  in  South  Carolina,  dated  October,  17,  1831, 


84      JAOKSOn's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

tion,"  was  the  assurance  which  he,  in  common  with  all  the 
politicians  of  the  north,  gave;  and  with  them,  he  considered 
that  that  ended  the  matter. 

The  south  judged  otherwise.  Sober  political  thought 
scarcely  permitted  it  to  see  into  the  question  any  clearer 
than  the  north,  but  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  caused 
it  to  recognize,  from  the  very  first,  that  a  serious  danger 
threatened  it,  and  that  this  danger  was  none  the  smaller  be- 
cause the  attack  proceeded  from  nameless  "  individuals." 
There  are  things  of  which  it  is  rightfully  said:  if  men  will 
hold  their  tongues,  the  stones  will  cry  out.  Benjamin 
Lundy  and  Lloyd  Garrison,  the  nameless  ones,  with  small 
school  training,  cast  as  boys  into  practical  life,  without 
friends  and  without  money,  would  hardly  have  thrown  them- 
selves against  the  "  flood  "  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  north, 
and  faced  the  angry  storm  -of  the  south,  were  it  not  that 
slavery  in  the  United  States  had  come  to  be  one  of  these 
things,  or  was  destined  to  become  one  of  them,  in  the  very 
near  future. 

The  time  was  favorable  to  the  abolitionists.  Beginning 
with  about  the  year  1825,  the  various  Protestant  churches 
were  taken  possession  of  by  an  unquiet  spirit.  Revivals 
were  the  order  of  the  day.  Home  and  foreign  missions  were 
organized  with  such  zeal,  and  on  such  a  scale,  that  one  might 
have  thought  this  earth  was  to  be  conquered  for  heaven  by 
one  mighty  assault.     From  the  pulpits  it  was  proclaimed 

we  read:  "  This  [an  article  which  appeared  a  few  weeks  previous  in  the 
•  National  Intelligencer ']  was  the  first  intimation  1  had  of  its  f  The  Lib- 
erator's '1  existence.  Upon  inquiring:  among  my  associates  in  office,  I  learnt 
that  such  a  paper  was  printed  in  this  town — but  no  individual  within  the 
immediate  reach  of  this  inquiry  has  seen  it.  .  .  .  Upon  further  in- 
quiry, I  have  not  ascertained  the  name  of  any  person  who  takes  it.  .  .  . 
I  am  told  that  it  is  supported  chiefly  by  the  free  colored  people.  ...  It 
is  edited  by  an  individual  who  formerly  lived  in  Baltimore."  Niles,  XLV, 
p.  42. 


MORAL   AWAKING.  '    85 

that  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  was  approaching  in  great  glory. 
Excited  imaginations  saw  already  the  "  dawn  of  the  millen- 
ium."  The  doctrine  of  Hopkins  and  Edwards  on  the  neces- 
sity of  "immediate  and  unconditional  repentance"  for  all 
sins,  found  acceptance  again,  and  it  was  scarcely  possible  to 
do  enough  in  the  cause  of  the  faith.  Peace  conferences  were 
endeavoring  to  rid  the  world  of  the  evils  of  war.  Temper- 
ance societies  organized  a  crusade  against  all  intoxicating 
beverages,  and  endeavored  to  press  the  arm  of  temporal 
authority  into  their  service.  It  fared  hard  with  theaters  and 
lotteries.  In  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  according  to 
the  prescriptions  of  the  Old  Testament,  people  wished  to  go 
so  far  as  to  prohibit  the  transmission  and  distribution  of  the 
mails  on  that  holy  day.  Public  lectures  on  these  and  kin- 
dred subjects  were  delivered  everywhere.  Religious  papers 
and  periodicals  were  founded,  and  they  excited  thought  and 
discussion  in  a  more  lasting  manner  than  the  other  means  of 
agitation.  The  political  press  also  entered  on  a  new  stage 
of  development.  It  took  possession  of  a  broader  territory, 
and  assumed  a  more  democratic  character.  Without  ceasing 
to  be  the  guide  of  political  opinion,  it  became  the  organ  of 
that  opinion  to  a  greater  extent  than  it  had  hitherto  been; 
and  voices  from  among  the  general  public  ventured  more 
and  more  frequently  to  speak  through  the  daily  papers. 

In  all  of  this  —  with  the  exception  of  what  we  have  said 
about  the  press  —  there  was  much  over-doing,  and  much  that 
was  unhealthy,  but  it  was,  nevertheless,  evidence  of  intense 
occupation  with  the  moral  problems  of  life.  It  would  have 
been  very  strange,  indeed,  if,  spite  of  all  this,  no  one  should 
have  proposed  the  abolition  of  slavery  as  a  national  problem,  ^ 
because  it  was  a  universally  admitted  principle  of  constitu- 
tional law,  that  the  constitution  had  completely  left  slavery 
the  character  of  an  institution  based  on  the  municipal  law 
of  the  several  states,  and  entirely  independent  of  the  general 


86    Jackson's  ADMINISTRATION — annexation  of  texas. 

govemraent.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  population  of  the  northern  states,  in  their  attitude  to- 
wards slavery,  remained,  to  the  last,  of  the  ingenuous  opinion 
that  moral  convictions  might  be  absolutely  controlled  by 
positive  provisions  of  law.  When  now  facts  began  to  prove 
the  contrary,  a  great  part  of  the  churches  were  the  first  to 
join  that  majority  in  turning  against  the  abolitionists.  But 
they  were  not  able,  any  more  than  the  politicians,  to  quench 
the  fire  which  they  had  helped  to  kindle. 

In  one  year,  Grarrison  had  found  so  many  who  shared  his 
views,  that  it  was  possible  to  found  the  "  New  England  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  "  in  Boston.^  The  example  was  imitated  in 
other  states.  The  movement  spread  so  rapidly  that  as  early 
as  December,  1833,  a  "national"  anti-slavery  convention 
could  be  held  in  Philadelphia.  The  immediate  practical  re- 
sult of  this  was  the  foundation  of  the  "  American  Anti- 
Slavery  Society."  It  introduced  itself  to  the  public  with  a 
"declaration  of  principles,"  which  constitutes  one  of  the 
most  important  boundary  marks  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States.  The  essence  of  the  declaration,  that  is,  that  which 
makes  it  such  a  boundary  mark,  may  be  comprised  in  two 
simple  sentences:  "  slavery  is  a  crime,"  and  all  reasons  of 
expediency  for  its  perpetuation  are,  therefore,  eo  ipso  of  no 
force ;  there  is  but  one  justifiable  way  of  dealing  with  a  crime ; 
complete  expiation  for  it;  and:  the  free  states  share  in  the 
crime,and  their  population  are  therefore  bound  to  take  ac- 
tion ; "  "  the  whole  nation  "  must  be  brought  to  "  immediate 
repentance." 

In  these  principles  a  war  was  declared  against  slavery 

'  January,  1832. 

*  The  difterent  subjects  in  the  antecedent  and  consequent  propositions, 
are  not  owing  to  negligence  in  the  form,  but  caused  by  the  peculiar  atti- 
tude which  the  abolitionists  assumed  at  this  time  towards  the  constitutional 
questions. 


NAT.   TUBNEB.  87 

which  excluded  the  possibility  of  peace;  it  was  to,  and  could, 
end  only  by  the  destruction  of  one  or  the  other.^ 

That  this  declaration  of  war  proceeded  from  a  handful  of 
private  persons,  opposed  to  whom  was  the  whole  south  in 
solid  phalanx,  was  of  decisive  importance  only  for  a  moment. 
It  was  in  the  very  nature  of  the  institution  that  it  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  question  of  existence,  by  such  a  con- 
fession of  faith.  With  the  acknowledgment  that  it  was  in- 
trinsically impossible  to  reconcile  these  contraries,  the  end 
of  the  development  phase  had  begun,  since  to  mediate  be- 
tween them  externally  was  still  possible.  The  actual  intensi- 
fication of  these  contraries  had,  even  previously,  not  stood 
still  a  moment;  but  from  this  time  forward,  the  recognition 
of  this  fact  became  necessarily  and  uninterruptedly  deeper 
and  more  widespread. 

In  the  same  year  that  Garrison  raised  the  standard  of  un- 
conditional abolitionism  in  Boston,  an  event  happened  in 
Virginia,  which,  from  the  opposite  side,  contributed  power- 
fully to  lead  the  slavery  question  over  into  its  new  stage  of 
development.  In  August,  1831,  an  uprising  of  slaves,  under 
the  leadership  of  Kat.  Turner,  occurred  in  Southampton 
county.  It  was,  however,  quickly  subdued,  but  cost  the  life 
of  sixty-one  white  persons,  mostly  women  and  children.' 
The  excitement  throughout  the  entire  south,  and  especially 

'  G.  Smith  said,  in  1834,  to  a  meeting  of  abolitionists :  *'  It  is  not  to  be 
disguised  that  war  has  broken  out  between  the  south  and  the  north,  not 
early  to  be  terminated.  PoUtical  and  commercial  men,  for  their  own  pur- 
poses, are  industriously  striving  to  restore  peace;  but  the  peace  they  ac- 
complish will  be  superficial  and  hollow.  True  and  permanent  peace  can 
only  be  restored  by  removing  the  cause  of  the  war  —  that  is,  slavery.  It 
cannot  ever  be  estabUshed  on  any  other  terms.  The  sword,  now  drawn, 
wiU  not  be  sheathed  until  the  deep  and  damning  stain  is  washed  out  from 
.  our  nation.  It  is  idle,  criminal,  to  speak  of  x)eace  on  any  other  terms." 
Wilson.  Rise  and  Fall,  etc.,  I,  pp.  290,  291. 

'  Annual  message  of  Governor  Floyd,  of  December  6, 1831.  Niles,  XLI, 
p.  350. 


88    Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

iu  Yirginia  aud  the  states  contiguous  to  it,  was  out  of  all 
proportion  with  the  number  of  the  victims  and  the  extent 
of  the  conspiracy.  For  a  long  time,  the  imagination  of 
every  idle  boy  was  a  power  which  could  put  broad  tracts  of 
country  in  the  most  frightful  excitement.^  The  weightiest 
voices  permitted  themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  intemperate 
advice  and  cruel  threats.  Governor  Floyd  advised  the  legis- 
lature to  order  all  free  persons  of  color  out  of  the  state,  and 
the  Bichmond  Whig  declared  that  another  uprising  would 
deliver  all  the  negroes  to  the  sword.'' 

It  was  not  so  difficult  to  account  for  the  fact  that  one 
blast  of  wind  sufficed  to  disturb  the  waters  to  the  very 
depths.  The  southern  press  and  the  correspondents  of 
northern  papers  hastened,  indeed,  to  assure  the  country  that 
the  insurgents  were  only  common  murdering  robbers.  Tur- 
ner's trial,  however,  proved  that  he  was  a  religious  fanatic, 
who  believed  he  had  been  called  directly  by  heaven  to  break 
the  chains  of  his  enslaved  brothers  by  race  with  fire  and 
sword.  Floyd,  in  his  message  to  the  legislature,  gave  im- 
portant testimony  to  show  that  this  was  the  natural  explana- 
tion of  the  Southampton  tragedy.  He  accused  the  negro 
preachers  of  being,  in  the  first  place,  the  instigators  of  the 
"  spirit  of  revolt; "  and  was  of  opinion  that,  in  the  interest  of 

'  Niles  writes,  in  his  2l8t  number,  of  the  15fch  of  October,  1831 :  "  The 
lower  part  of  the  state  of  Delaware  and  the  acjjacent  parts  of  the  eastern 
shore  of  Maryland,  have  been  much  agitated  by  apprehensions  of  a  servile 
insurrection,  and  a  good  many  persons  of  color  were  arrested  —  many  ex- 
presses sent  off  for  arms  and  men,  and  awful  reports  were  heaped  upon  one 
another  by  fear!  There  does  not  appear  to  have  been  the  least  foundation 
for  this  excitement —  but  the  ease  with  which  it  was  worked  up  shows  a 
most  unhappy  state  of  society."    XLI,  p.  131. 

'  Even  the  moderate  Niles  writes,  in  his  "  Register:  "  "  The  idea  prevails 
that,  because  of  the  terrible  events  in  Southampton,  the  white  population, 
in  case  of  like  outrages  in  future,  will  retaliate  by  an  indiscriminate 
slaughter  of  the  blacks  —  and  such,  we  think,  wiU  probably  take  place!  " 
XLI,  p.  19. 


THE  NEGEO  AND  THE  GOSPEL.  89 

the  public  good,  their  mouths  should  be  closed.^  And  he 
was  not  the  only  person  that  held  this  view.  Niles  writes: 
"  It  is  to  be  apprehended  they  will  be  pretty  generally  de- 
prived of  the  opportunity  of  religious  instruction.'"^  This 
wide-spread  conviction,  that  the  consolations  of  the  Savior  of 
sinners  must  turn  into  the  seed  of  the  dragon  in  the  hearts  of 
the  "  burthened  and  heavily  laden,"  was  a  frightful  commen- 
tary on  the  alleged  patriarchal  character  of  slavery.  Granting 
that  it  was  as  the  south  assumed,  and  that  the  great  majority  of 
the  slaves  clung  with  childlike  attachment  to  their  masters  — 
of  what  availed  that  fact  in  view  of  such  a  conviction?  The 
institution  must  have  been  all  the  more  execrable,  all  the 
more  horrible,  if  notwitlistanding  this,  the  motion  of  a  branch 
or  the  rustling  of  a  dry  leaf  could  excite  sudden  terror  in  num- 
berless breasts.  Governor  Hayne,  of  South  Carolina,  ad- 
mitted that  slavery  compelled  the  state  to  be  continually 
armed.'  Brodnax  cried  out  in  the  legislature  of  Virginia: 
"  Life  becomes  a  burden  if  men  are  forced  to  lock  their  doors 
at  night,  and  open  them  in  the  morning  to  receive  their  ser- 
vants to  light  their  lires,  with  pistols  in  their  hands."    And 


'  "  The  public  good  requires  the  negro  preachers  to  be  silenced,  who, 
full  of  ignorance,  afe  incapable  of  inculcating  anything  but  notions  of  the 
wildest  superstition,  thus  preparing  fit  instruments  in  the  hands  of  the 
crafty  agitators  to  destroy  the  pubUc  tranquillity."  Niles,  XLI,  p.  360. 
Maryland  now  forbade  not  only  the  slaves  but  also  free  persons  of  color  to 
assist  at  a  religious  meeting,  unless  such  meeting  was  led  by  a  white  or- 
dained preacher,  or  by  a  white  man  authorized  by  such  a  preacher  to  lead 
it.  Sketch  of  the  Laws  of  Maryland,  in  relation  to  the  colored  Population 
of  the  State,  ibid,  p.  217.  Baltimore  and  Annapolis  only  were  exempted 
from  obedience  to  this  provision,  and  slaveholders  might  allow  their  slaves 
to  have  prayer  in  common. 

» Ibid.,  p.  130. 

* "  A  state  of  military  preparation  most  alwajrs  be  with  us  a  state  of 
perfect  domestic  security.  A  profound  peace,  and  consequent  apathy,  may 
expose  us  to  the  danger  of  domestic  insurrection."  Message  of  Gov. 
Hayne  to  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina,  1833. 


90    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Niles  complained;  "  Thousands  of  mothers,  while  trembling 
for  their  own  safety,  press  their,  infants  more  closely  to 
their  bosoms,  feeling  that  what  had  happened  in  Southamp- 
ton m/iy  happen  to  themselves."  This  "  may  "  weighed  like 
an  Alp,  wherever  there  were  slaves,  on  the  minds  of  the 
people,  and  again  for  a  moment  tore  away  the  network  of 
sophistry  which  had  been  woven  blacker  and  thicker  about 
the  institution. 

It  was  owing  to  a  favorable  accident  that  at  the  same  time 
the  legislature  of  Virginia  was  forced  by  another  cause  to 
engage  in  an  unreserved  discussion  of  the  slavery  question. 
In  the  mountainous  west  of  the  state  there  were  only  few 
slaves.  Hence  there  prevailed  there,  for  a  considerable  time, 
gi-eat  dissatisfaction  because  ihe  quota  of  representation  in 
the  legislature  was  estimated  according  to  the  aggregate 
population.  The  plantation-owners  of  the  eastern  flat  coun- 
try, who  constituted  only  a  small  minority  of  the  white  pop- 
ulation, were  by  this  means  insured  the  rule  of  the  country. 
The  convention  called  to  efiect  a  timely  transformation  of 
the  constitution,  in  the  year  1829-1830,  afforded  the  desired 
opportunity  for  an  effort  to  break  the  preponderant  power 
of  this  aristocracy.  The  delegates  of  the  western  and  mid- 
dle counties  confidently  hoped  for  victory.  But  the  serried 
ranks  of  the  planters,  the  bearers  of  the  oldest  and  proudest 
names  of  Virginia,  showed  themselves  in  the  end  too  strong 
for  the  innovators.  They  could  not  succeed  even  in  having 
the  white  population  made  the  basis  of  representation  for 
the  house  of  representatives.  In  the  compromise  which  was 
finally  effected,  a  definite  principle  was  wanting  as  a  firm 
basis,  and  neither  party  was  satisfied. 

This  disposition  had  not  yet  died  out  when  Turner,  by  way 
of  addition,  cast  an  argument  of  fearful  weight,  based  on  the 
bloody  scenes  at  Southampton  into  the  scale  of  the  defeated 
democrats.     They  now,  in  the  session  of  1831-1832,  resumed 


EMANCIPATION.  91 

the  fight  with  redoubled  energy,  and  extended  their  attack 
along  the  whole  line  of  their  enemies.  Thomas  JefEerson 
Randolph,  a  grandson  of  Jefferson,  made  a  motion  that  a 
committee  should  be  appointed  to  investigate  the  suitable- 
ness of  a  gradual  emancipation  of  all  slaves,  and  to  report 
to  the  house  on  it.  The  debates  lasted  several  weeks,  and 
the  whole  Union  followed  them  with  riveted  attention. 
Powell  excellently  described  their  character,  without  per- 
ceiving how  severe  a  judgment  he,  in  doing  so,  passed  on  his 
own  party.  "In  listening  to  an  unrestrained  discussion 
upon  a  subject  on  which  we  are  accustomed  to  breathe  our 
opinions  with  the  lowest  whisper,  I  feel  that  1  am  in  a 
dream."  Well  indeed  might  it  seem  like  a  dream,  to  hear 
slavery  denounced  once  more  in  the  legislature  of  Virginia, 
witli  a  pathos  such  as,  outside  of  the  small  circle  of  aboli- 
tionists, scarcely  any  one  in  the  free  states  had  dared  to  de- 
nounce it.  "Tax  our  lands,  vilify  our  country,  carry  the 
sword  of  extermination  through  our  now  defenseless  villages, 
but  spare  us,  I  implore  you — spare  us  the  curse  of  slavery, 
that  bitterest  drop  from  the  chalice  of  the  destroying  angel." 
The  all-embracing  question  was  illuminated  from  every  side, 
but  throughout  the  greatest  weight  was  attached  to  the  disas- 
trous consequences  of  slavery,  and  of  these  again  the  greatest 
stress  was  laid  on  the  economic.  Marshall  said  that  for  the 
slaves'  sake,  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  not  at  all  desirable; 
"but,"  he  went  on,  "it  is  ruinous  to  the  whites;  retards  im- 
provement, roots  out  an  industrious  population,  banishes 
the  yeomanry  of  the  country,  deprives  the  spinner,  the 
weaver,  the  smith,  the  shoemaker,  the  carpenter,  of  employ- 
ment and  support.  This  evil  admits  of  no  remedy,  it  is  in- 
creasing, and  will  continue  to  increase,  until  the  whole  state 
will  be  inundated  with  one  black  wave  covering  her  whole 
extent,  with  a  few  white  faces  here  and  there  floating  on  the 
surface."  ^ 

» Wilson,  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Powmt,  I,  p.  201. 


92    Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

But  the  palm  in  the  whole  debate  was  carried  away  by 
James  McDowell,  by  the  calm  lucidity  with  which  he  en- 
deavored to  follow  the  essential  nature  of  the  struggle  to 
its  lowest  depths.  The  dirty  subterfuge  which  was  as  old 
as  the  slavery  question  itself,  that  a  more  favorable  moment 
must  be  awaited,  he  met  with  the  assertion  that,  unless  the 
evil  were  now  attacked  by  legislative  means,  its  removal 
would  have  to  take  plaee  amid  convulsions.^  For  that 
slavery  had  ultimately  to  come  to  an  end,  in  the  one  way  or 
the  other,  there  could  be  no  question ,  because  it  is  impos- 
sible to  reconcile  the  slave  to  his  fate.^  The  inflexible  non 
possumMS  with  which  it  was  thought  to  oppose  an  unsur- 
passable limit  to  every  attempt  at  a  rational  and  legal  solu- 
tion of  the  question,  was  completely  worn  out;  the  right  of 
property  cannot  be  an  absolute  one,  but  must  find  its  limita- 
tion in  the  higher  demands  of  the  universal  good.' 

•  **  A  necessity  for  acting  .  .  .  exists  now,  unless  we  are  prepared 
to  surrender  every  hope  of  legislative  remedy  and  patiently  commit  our- 
selves to  the  issues  of  convulsion."  Speech  of  J.  McDowell  in  the  Virginia 
House  of  Delegates,  January  21, 1832,  p.  18. 

*'*...  A  slave  is  the  more  unhappy  as  he  is  the  more  indulged. 
Introduce  him  step  after  step  into  the  enjoyments  of  that  estate  from  which 
he  has  fallen,  and  yet  proclaim  to  him  that  he  is  never  to  regain  it,  and 
his  heart  rejects  every  favor  but  the  favor  which  is  denied.  As  you  benefit 
his  external  condition,  then,  you  do  not  better  him  as  a  slave;  but,  with 
feelings  of  increased  discontent,  you  improve  his  intellect,  and  thereby  in- 
crease both  his  disposition  and  his  capacity  for  the  purposes  of  resentment. 
Depend  upon  it,  sir,  that  he  will  use  his  capacity  for  such  purposes  —  that 
the  state  of  things  which  we  boast  of  as  the  evidence  of  our  humanity,  is 
not  the  state  of  things  to  be  trusted  in."  And  it  was  just  as  impossible  to 
attain  the  desired  end  by  the  opposite  road.  "  You  may  put  him  under 
any  process  which,  without  destroying  his  value  as  a  slave,  will  debase  and 
crush  him  as  a  rational  being  — you  may  do  this,  and  the  idea  that  he  was 
bom  to  be  free  will  survive  it  all."    Ibid.,  pp.  19,  20. 

» "  The  private  property  .  .  .  which  a  state  allows  to  be  held  by  its 
citizens,  must  consist  with  the  general  end  for  which  the  state  itself  is  cre- 
ated; must  be  held  under  the  reserved  and  necessary  condition,  that  it  is 
not  to  be  productive  of  public  disadvantage,  or,  that  if  it  be,  that  then  it 


VIEQINIA   AND   SLAVERY.  93 

Tliese  debates,  even  np  to  and  after  the  beginning  of  the 
civil  war,  remained  a  hobby  with  the  partisans  of  the  sonth 
in  the  north.  Thej  would  fain  have  seen  in  them  an  irrefu- 
table proof  that  Virginia  was  removed  only  one  short  step 
from  the  resolve  to  abolish  slavery  gradually,  and  they  de- 
clared themselves  convinced  that  it  would  have  taken  the 
step, during  the  next  succeeding  years,  were  it  not  that,  in 
consequence  of  a  righteous  indignation  at  the  abolition  agi- 
tation, a  revolution  in  public  opinion  big  with  fate  was  pro- 
duced. But  the  assertion  was  repeated  so  frequently,  that 
even  other  circles  began  to  half  believe  in  its  correctness. 
But,  in  reality,  it  is  in  such  glaring  contradiction  with  the 
facts,  that  it  is  difficult  to  convince  one's  self  that  we  have 
to  do  with  a  misunderstanding  of  the  facts,  and  not  with  a 
barefaced  distortion  of  them.  Not  Yirginia,  but  West  Vir- 
ginia, in  which  slavery  dragged  out  only  a  wretched  and  ar- 
tificial life,  struggled  with  honest  zeal  for  emancipation. 
Between  the  two  halves  of  the  state  there  existed  a  conflict 
of  interests,  and-,  therefore,  also  of  views,  which  here  clashed 
greatly  one  with  the  other.  This  conflict,  even  if  it  was  for 
a  time  less  apparent,  never  died  out  entirely,  and  it  made 
itself  felt  in  the  most  striking  manner  at  the  moment  of  the 
breach  between  the  north  and  the  south.  The  abolition  agi- 
tation had  neither  now  nor  later  exerted  any  influence  on  the 
decision  of  this  question ;  it  only  served  to  help  those  slavo- 
crats  to  somewhat  greater  clearness,  who  had  hitherto  very 
successfully  deceived  themselves  with  lies.  This  middle 
party  decided  the  battle,  and  they  decided  it  in  favor  of  the 
slavocrats,  which  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  McDowell, 
and  those  who  thought  like  him,  were  very  much  deceived, 
if  they  expected  any  success  from  their  speeches.  The  time 
when  slaveholders  were  open  to  argument  was  long  since 

becomes  the  iaxr  subject,  to  the  state,  of  resumption  or  restnunt."    Ibid., 
p.  11. 


94   Jackson's  administeation  —  aitnexation  of  texas. 

passed.  Many  of  them  were  yet  so  sensitive  to  the  titilla- 
tion  of  rhetoric  that  they  even  surpassed  the  pathos  of  their 
opponents,  but  actual  circumstances  weighed  so  heavily  on 
them  that  they  would  not  have  attempted  even  the  slightest 
resistance.  They,  in  the  same  breath,  called  slavery  the 
"  mildew  "  which  would  necessarily  destroy  all  life,  and  de- 
clared the  right  of  property  of  masters  in  their  slaves  to  be 
inviolable.  The  impression  which  the  Southampton  massacre 
had  made  on  this  kind  of  people  —  at  the  time  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  population  of  the  slave  states  —  was  wiped  out 
as  rapidly  as  it  had  been  violent.  The  terror  of  the  storm 
was  shaken  off  with  the  last  echo  of  the  thunder.  They 
now  calmly  philosophized  over  the  perfection  in  fact  of  the 
protection  of  the  house  against  storms  and  the  elements, 
and  violently  denounced  the  unsolicited  friends  who  contin- 
ued to  talk  of  the  necessity  of  a  conductor  to  lead  the  light- 
ning away,  after  they  had,  the  moment  before,  clamored  for 
it  so  anxiously  themselves.'     From  this  to  the  charge  that  it 

'  That  this  description  is  not  exaggerated,  we  may  prove  by  Niles,  who 
is  always  reserved  and  moderate.  In  the  article,  already  frequently  cited, 
of  the  15th  of  October,  1831  (XLI,  pp.  130,  131),  we  read:  "  Free  labor 
and  slave  labor  cannot  abide  together.  .  .  .  Such  is  the  truth  —  and  it 
will  reach  the  heart  and  home  of  every  one  interested,  through  sober  reflec- 
tion, or  in  frightful  necessity.  .  .  .  Let,  then,  the  soundest  heads  and 
best  hearts  of  the  nation  be  engaged  to  build  up  some  practicable  project 
which  shall,  at  once,  afford  the  hope  of  security  to  white  persons  and  extend 
the  prospect  of  an  ameliorated  condition  to  the  slaves.  .  .  .  There  are 
men  whose  voices  would  be  heard — whose  sound  sense  and  established  pa- 
triotism would  reach  many  of  the  most  obdurate  and  compel  them  to  reflect, 
under  an  awful  assurance  of  events  that  must  flow  from  an  adherence  to  the 
present  state  of  things.  But  still,  certain  '  would  not  believe  though  one 
arose  from  the  dead,'  to  admonish  them — for  there  are  some  who  must 
feel  bafore  they  reason."  And  on  the  25th  of  February,  1832,  he  writes: 
"  But  the  southern  people  will  not  agree  to  be  '  taxed  '  to  pay  for  what 
they  regard  as  their  own  property  —  and  will,  indeed,  generally  resist  the 
adoption  of  any  measure  which  looks  to  the  final  extinction  of  negro  slavery 
in  the  United  States.    They  love  their  slaves,  and  say  their  slaves  love 


HATRED   OF   ABOLITIONISTS.  95 

was  onlj  the  unfortunate  and  criminal  talk  of  the  former 
which  had  provoked  the  danger,  there  were  only  a  few  steps. 
Governor  Floyd  had  from  the  first  gone  thus  far.  The 
message  of  the  6th  of  December  directly  calls  the  "  fanatics  " 
of  the  neighboring  states  the  presumable  originators  of  the 
conspiracy.^  Who  were  meant  by  the  "  fanatics  "  was  natur- 
ally understood  equally  well  in  the  north  and  the  south.  But 
this  was  not  all;  denunciation  broke  out  just  as  violently  in 
the  north  as  in  the  south.  Hatred  for  the  abolitionists  was 
only  just  beginning  in  the  south;  in  the  north,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  fanaticism  of  quiet  was  already  fully  developed. 
Even  in  the  first  number  of  the  Liberator^  Garrison  declares 
that  a  greater  revolution  in  public  opinion  had  to  be  accom- 
plished in  the  north  than  in  the  south.  "  Here,"  he  says, 
"  I  found  contempt  more  bitter,  detraction  more  relentless, 
prejudice  more  stubborn,  and  apathy  more  frozen  than  among 
slave-owners  themselves."  ^  People  from  different  quarters 
hastened  to  establish  the  truth  of  this  cutting  charge  by  reach- 
ing  out  their  hands  with  imbecile  greed  for  the  most  terrible 
fruit  which  slavery  had  ripened  in  the  land  of  freedom. 

them.  We  do  not  see  any  reason  why  those  who  are  not  slaveholders 
should  press  this  subject,  to  separate  persons  who  are  so  much  attached  to 
one  another  —  so  mutually  advantageous  —  so  happy  and  contented.  We 
only  irritate,  by  suffering  our  feelings  to  enter  into  this  question.  .  .  . 
We  are  not  for  obtruding  our  services  on  those  who  scornfully  reject  them, 
and  would  wish  them  to  '  manage  their  own  concerns  in  their  own  way.' 
We  shall  do  the  same."    Ibid.,  p.  472. 

'  There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  the  spirit  of  insurrection  was  not 
confined  t-o  Southampton.  .  .  ,  From  the  documents  which  1  herewith 
lay  before  you,  there  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  those  plans  of  treason, 
insurrection  and  murder  have  been  designed,  planned  and  matured,  by 
unrestrained  fanatics  in  some  of  the  neighboring  states,  who  find  fadlitiea 
in  distributing  their  views  and  plans  amongst  our  population,  either 
through  the  post  office,  or  by  agents  sent  for  that  purpose  throughout  our 
territory."    Ibid.,  p.  350. 

« Wilson,  Rise  and  Fall,  etc.,  I,  p.  182. 


96    Jackson's  ADMINISTRATION — annexation  of  texas. 

In  those  stormy  debates  in  the  legislature  of  Yirginia, 
after  Turner's  insurrection,  Moore,  one  of  the  most  fiery  ad- 
vocates of  emancipation,  declared  it  to  be  a  peremptory 
demand  of  slavery  that  the  "  ignorance  of  his  [the  master's] 
slaves  "  should  be  "  as  profound  as  possible."  That  this  was 
really  systematically  aimed  at  in  the  slave  states,  has  not 
been  denied.  The  responsibility  for  this,  also,  it  was  sought 
to  throw  upon  the  abolitionists,  through  whose  agitation 
alone  these  precautionary  measures  became  necessary.  How 
completely  untenable  this  claim  is,  is  shown  by  the  super- 
ficial examination  of  Judge  Stroud's  book,  Sketch  of  the  Slave 
Laws,  which  appeared  in  1827.^  It  is,  however,  unquestion- 
able that  about  this  time  fresh  measures  were  taken  by  legis- 
lation to  bnitalize  the  slaves,  and  it  is  certain  that  abolition- 
ism contributed  largely  to  bring  this  about.  The  abolition- 
ists should  be  the  last  to  hesitate  to  admit  this,  for  nothing 
can  bear  louder  or  more  irrefutable  testimony  for  them  than 
this  efiect  of  their  agitation.  In  North  Carolina,  in  1830, 
it  was  forbidden  to  teach  a  slave  to  read,  under  penalty  of 
$200.'^  About  the  same  time,  a  law  of  the  same  import  was 
passed  in  Georgia,  which,  besides,  threatened  the  circulation 
of  incendiary  documents  with  death.'     In  1833,  the  senate 


'  We  may  here  briefly  refer  to  some  of  the  older  laws.  In  1740,  in  South 
Carolina,  it  was  forbidden  to  teach  a  slave  to  read,  under  a  penalty  of  one 
hundred  pounds  sterling.  A  penalty  of  twenty  pounds  sterling  was  at- 
tached to  the  same  crime  in  Georgia.  A  law  of  Virginia  of  the  year  1819, 
declared  all  meetings,  "either  in  the  day  or  night,  under  whatsoever  pre- 
text," in  which  reading  or  writing  was  taught  to  slaves,  unlawful,  and  the 
justice  of  the  peace  might  sentence  the  participants  to  as  many  as  twenty 
strokes  of  the  lash.  Whoever  in  Savannah  taught  reading  or  writing  to  a 
colored  person,  "slave  or  free,"  was  fined  thirty  dollars.  If  the  guilty 
person  was  colored,  he  received,  besides,  thirty-nine  strokes  of  the  lash 
(1818).    Goodell,  The  American  Slave  Code,  pp.  319-321. 

*  Jay,  Letter  to  Bishop  Ives,  Misc.  Writ.,  p.  4S2. 

•Niles,  XXXVII,  p.  341. 


ENFORCED   IGNOEANCE.  97 

of  South  Carolina  passed  a  bill  of  the  following  tenor:  *  A 
white  person  who  taught  a  slave  or  a  free  person  of  color  to 
read  or  write,  was  fined  $100  and  sentenced  to  six  months' 
imprisonment;  a  free  person  of  color,  guilty  of  the  same 
crime,  was  fined  $50  and  received  50  strokes  of  the  lash;  if 
a  slave  were  the  guilty  party  —  (this  was  also  applicable  in 
the  case  of  parents  in  relation  to  their  children)  —  the  only 
punishment  was  50  strokes  of  the  lash.  No  slave  and  no 
free  person  of  color  was  henceforth  to  be  permitted  to  preach 
or  to  deliver  lectures.  Wliite  persons  were  allowed  to  preach 
or  lecture  before  slaves  or  free  persons  of  color  only  in  the 
presence  of  at  least  three  white  slaveholders.' 

Tliese  examples  suflSce.  All  slave  states,  and  especially  all 
plantation  states,  harbored  to  a  greater  or  lesser  extent  the 
same  principle,  that  every  ray  of  light  should  be  kept  from 
the  minds  of  the  slave,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  from  the  minds 
even  of  the  free  person  of  color.  There  is  evidence  enough 
to  show  what  revolting  effects  this  endeavor  produced.  But 
most  revolting  of  all,  the  free  north  also  began  to  feel  it  its 
duty  to  make  it  impossible  for  persons  of  color  to  rise  to  an 
existence  worthy  of  human  beings. 

New  Haven,  the  seat  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  im- 
portant higher  institutions  of  learning  in  the  country,  gave, 
80  far  as  the  sources  at  my  command  afford  any  information, 
the  signal  for  the  cmsade  against  the  educational  endeavors 
of  people  of  color.  In  June,  1831,  a  convention  of  free  per- 
sons of  color  in  Philadelphia  resolved  on  the  establishment 
of  a  college  which  should  afford  boys  and  young  men  of 
their  race  an  opportunity  to  pursue  "classical  studies "  while 
they  were  at  the  same  time  instructed  in  agriculture,  or  in  a 
trade,  and  might  meet  the  cost  of  this  higher  schooling  by 

'  As  I  have  no  collection  of  the  state  laws  at  hand,  it  is  impoceible  for  me 
to  say  whether,  or  to  what  extent,  these  provisions  of  law  were  modified. 
•Niles,  XLV.  p.  292. 
7 


98      JACKSON  S  ADMINISTRATION  — ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

their  own  work.  New  Haven  was  chosen  as  the  prospective 
seat  of  the  institution.  This  induced  the  major  and  alder- 
men to  call  an  extraordinary  town  meeting  on  the  10th  of 
September.  The  meeting  gave  them  a  vote  of  thanks  and 
resolved  "to  resist,  ...  by  every  lawful  means,  the 
establishment  of  a  college  ...  to  educate  the  colored 
population,"  as  "  incompatible  with  the  prosperity,  if  not 
the  existence,  of  the  present  institutions  of  learning,"  and 
"  as  destructive  of  the  best  interests  of  the  city."  Besides, 
it  was  argued,  "  the  founding  of  colleges  for  educating  colored 
people  is  an  unwarrantable  and  dangerous  interference  with 
the  internal  concerns  of  the  other  states,  and  ought  to  be  dis- 
couraged." ^ 

This  example  found  imitators.  In  Canterbury,  Connecti- 
cut, a  Miss  Prudence  Crandall  had  founded  an  institute  for 
girls.  After  a  time,  she  admitted  into  it  colored  girls  also. 
Neither  the  white  scholars  nor  their  parents  entered  any  pro- 
test against  this.  But  the  people  of  the  place  were  deter- 
mined not  to  suffer  such  an  outrage.  When  all  means  of 
malicious  chicanery  were  exhausted,  a  great  agitation  was 
begun,  and  a  law  was  passed  (May  24,  1833)  prohibiting  the 
establishment  of  schools  for  persons  of  color  from  other 
states,  as  well  as  the  admission  of  such  into  other  schools, 
without  the  written  permission  of  a  majority  of  the  local 
authorities  and  selectmen.  Prudence  Crandall  was  cast  into 
prison  for  violation  of  this  law,  and  confined  in  a  cell  which 
had  been  occupied,  a  short  time  before,  by  a  criminal  con- 
demned to  death.  The  case  was  carried  to  the  highest  court 
of  the  state,  the  court  of  errors,  and  its  decision  turned  on 
the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  law  of  the  24th 
of  May,  1833.  The  first  time  the  case  was  tried  the  jury 
were  unable  to  agree  on  a  verdict.     The  second  time,  the 

'  See  the  resolutions  of  the  town  meeting  and  the  reply  of  the  agent  of 
the  convention,  in  Niles,  XLI,  pp.  88,  89. 


PKUDENCE   CEANDALL.  99 

jury  found  Prudence  Crandall  guilty,  but  the  court  of  errors 
found  a  back  door  of  escape,  and  avoided  giving  a  decision 
or  an  opinion  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  law.  Canter- 
bury then  took  the  matter  into  its  own  hands.  After  an 
attempt  to  burn  the  school  had  failed,  it  was  stormed  with 
stones  and  crowbars  on  the  night  of  9th  of  September,  1834. 
The  noble-hearted  woman  who  had  stood  unshaken  for 
nearly  two  years  against  the  ignorance  of  the  place  and  of 
the  whole  state,  now  abstained  from  all  further  resistance; 
the  day  was  won  by  the  priests  of  night.^ 

Shorter  work  was  made  of  it,  in  a  similar  case,  in  Canaan, 
New  Hampshire.  In  1834,  a  college  was  established  there, 
the  by-laws  of  which  promised  admittance  to  all  who  were 
morally  and  intellectually  qualified  for  admission.  A  town 
meeting  resolved  to  have  no  intercourse  whatever  with  any 
one  who  persisted  in  the  attempt  to  establish  a  school  in 
the  place  in  which  only  persons  of  color,  or  persons  of  color 
in  common  with  white  persons,  should  receive  instruction. 
When,  spite  of  this,  the  school  was  opened  the  following 
spring,  another  town  meeting  charged  a  committee  with  the 
duty  of  removing  it  by  force.  On  the  10th  of  August,  1835, 
the  building  was  razed  to  the  ground  with  the  aid  of  about 
a  hundred  oxen,  and  left  there  a  mass  of  ruins.  Not  one  of 
the  instigators  of  the  disgraceful  deed  was  brought  to  justice.' 

In  New  York,  the  embitterment  against  the  abolitionists 
had  reached  such  a  height,  the  year  before,  that  they  had  to 
be  in  constant  expectation  of  personal  violence.  Wlien,  on 
the  2d  of  October,  1833,  they  called  a  meeting,  in  Clinton 
Hall,  to  establish  an  abolition  society,  the  walls  and  the  cor- 


'  The  history  of  this  straggle  is  very  accurately  told  by  Samuel  J.  May, 
who  played  a  very  distinguished  part  in  it  himself.  Recollections  of  the 
Anti-Slavery  Conflict,  pp.  39-71. 

•Jay,  on  the  Condition  of  the  Free  People  of  Color  in  the  United  States. 
Misc.  Writ.,  pp.  384,  385. 


100  Jackson's  administkation'  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ners  of  houses  were  covered  with  appeals  intended  to  frna- 
trate  the  purpose.  Clinton  Hall  was  taken  possession  of  at 
an  early  hour  bj  a  noisy  crowd,  so  that  the  abolitionists  be- 
took themselves  secretly  to  the  Chatham  street  church,  and 
there  constituted  themselves  a  society,  while  their  opponents 
went  to  Tammany  Hall,  where  they  permitted  themselves 
to  be  entertained  with  denunciations  of  the  ruthless  jeopard- 
ers  of  the  Union.  The  following  day,  the  Commercial 
Advertiser,  one  of  the  most  respectable  papers  of  the  city, 
assured  the  country  that  if  hands  could  have  been  laid  on 
Garrison,  he  would  hardly  have  escaped  a  "  coat  of  tar  and 
feathers."  ^ 

Tlie  next  summer  people  were  not  satisfied  with  threats. 
From  the  7th  to  the  11th  of  July,  1834,  the  city  was  the  scene 
of  wild  tumult.  The  spark  which  set  the  pile  of  combustible 
material  aflame  was  the  struggle  between  the  blacks  and  the 
whites  for  the  right  to  use  the  church  in  Chatham  street. 
The  row  in  the  church  was  continued  in  the  streets.  A 
crowd  proceeded  to  the  house  of  Lewis  Tappan,  who,  for 
a  noble  spirit  of  sacrifice  as  a  philanthropist  and  abolitionist, 
stood  second  to  but  one  man  in  New  York,  his  brother 
Arthur.  This  night  the  rabble  confined  themselves  to  rain- 
ing a  heavy  shower  of  stones  upon  the  house.  But  every 
succeeding  evening  brought  new  disturbances,  and  these 
assumed  a  more  serious  character  every  day.  Lewis  Tap- 
pan's  house  was  stormed,  the  furniture  thrown  out  of  it, 
broken  and  burned.  The  houses  of  other  abolitionists  and 
some  churches  shared  the  same  fate.  A  proclamation  of  the 
mayor,  the  admonitions  of  the  press,  the  cudgels  of  the  police 

' "  We  will  not  record  the  expressions  of  disgust  and  abhorrence  which 
were  coupled  with  his  [Garrison'sl  name;  and  we  believe  that  had  he  been 
present,  many  grave  and  respectable  citizens,  who,  mider  other  circum- 
stances would  have  been  the  last  to  participate  in  any  disorderly  popular 
proceedings,  would  at  least  have  assented  to  his  decoration  in  a  coat  of  tar 
and  feathers."    Kiles,  XLV,  p.  111. 


TIIE   KIOTS. 


101 


availed  nothing.*  Barricades  were  erected,  and  had  to  be 
taken  by  storm.  It  fared  worst  with  the  negroes.  The  Daily 
Advertiser  reports,  of  the  12th  of  July:  "The  vengeance 
of  the  mob  appeared  to  be  directed  entirely  against  the 
blacks ;  whenever  a  colored  person  appeared,  it  was  a  signal 
of  combat,  fight  and  riot."  Only  after  the  mayor  had  called 
out  all  the  military  at  his  disposal,  and  on  all  the  citizens  to 
organize  as  a  guard  extraordinary,  was  quiet  gradually  re- 
stored.'^ 

Similar  events  had  taken  place  simultaneously  in  Newark, 
New  Jersey,  and  Norwich,  Connecticut. 

The  mayor  of  New  York,  as  well  as  the  daily  press,  were 
obliged  to  preface  their  appeals  for  quiet  and  order  by  very 
decided  verdicts  against  the  abolitionists.  The  whole  coun- 
try now  seemed  resolved  to  crush  them  out  by  the  moral 
weight  of  tlieir  unconditional  disapproval.  The  newspapers 
had  new  anti-abolitionist  meetings,  in  which  the  highest 
local  officers,  and  sometimes  even  the  highest  officers  of  the 
state,  played  a  very  important  part,  to  report  every  day. 
There  was  only  one  thing  wanting  to  make  the  weight  of 
this  moral  pressure  annihilation:  morality  itself,  which  was 
on  the  side  of  those  whom  it  was  sought  to  oppress.  Thus 
it  happened  that  the  mountain  of  accusations  and  condem- 
nations under  which  the  little  band  were  to  be  buried,  fell 
without  effect  behind  or  before  the  object  aimed  at,  while 
one-half  of  the  persecutors  could  not  help — even  if  fre- 
quently against  their  will  —  to  hold  a  protecting  shield  over 
it  against  the  missiles  of  the  other  half.    The  rabble — the 

'A  reporter  says  of  the  night  of  the  11th  of  July:  "The  military  were 
on  duty,  and  the  mayor  was  at  the  hall  all  night.  It  cannot  be  disguised, 
however,  that  the  mob  were  complete  masters  of  the  dty,  and  the  city 
government  was  overawed,  and  for  the  time  at  an  end." 

'  The  more  extensive  reports  of  the  daily  press  are  printed  in  Niles,  XLVI, 
pp.  357-360. 


102  Jackson's  administkation — annexation  of  texas. 

washed  as  well  as  the  unwashed — felt  that,  in  this  waj,  thej 
could  not  only  never  reach  the  goal,  but  that  they  were 
pushed  farther  and  farther  from  it.  Their  rage  drove  them 
repeatedly  to  other  deeds  of  violence,  by  which,  however, 
they  only  injured  their  own  bad  cause. 

The  abolitionist  society  of  women  in  Boston  called  a  meet- 
ing for  the  21st  of  October,  1835.  It  was  rumored  about 
that  the  English  abolitionist,  Thompson,  would  speak  at  that 
meeting.  A  public  notice  called  on  the  citizens  to  hunt  the 
"foreign  scoundrel,"  and  offered  a  reward  of  one  hundred 
dollars  to  the  individual  who  should  first  "lay  violent  hands" 
on  him,  that  he  might  be  brought  to  the  "  tar  kettle  before 
dark."  Crowds  of  people  surrounded  the  place  where  the 
headquarters  of  the  society  were  situated,  stormed  into  the 
hall,  and  endeavored,  by  blustering  and  bellowing,  to  pre- 
vent the  transaction  of  any  business  by  the  meeting.  The 
mayor  appeared  on  the  scene,  admitted  that  the  meeting  had 
a  right  to  his  protection,  but  declared  himself  powerless,  and 
bade  the  women  disperse,  in  order  to  prevent  any  further 
trouble.  His  order  was  obeyed.  Garrison,  for  whom  the 
mob  had  been  bellowing  for  a  long  time,  endeavored  to 
escape  unnoticed  by  a  back  door,  but  was  seized,  and,  a  rope 
about  his  neck,  dragged  through  the  streets  amid  tlie  howl- 
ing of  the  multitude.  It  was  only  with  difficulty  that  the 
mayor  succeeded  in  getting  him  into  a  carriage  and  saving 
him  from  his  persecutors  in  a  jail.^ 

Utica,  New  York,  was  the  theatre  of  similar  scenes  the 

'  See  the  extended  report  of  the  daily  press  of  these  events  in  Niles, 
XLIX,  pp.  145,  146.  The  "Boston  Gazette  "  wrote:  "  We  never  before 
saw  so  gentlemanly  a  rabble  —  if  a  rabble  it  may  be  called  —  as  that 
assembled  yesterday.  ...  It  was,  in  fact,  a  meeting  of  gentlemen  oi 
property  and  standing  from  all  parts  of  the  city,  who  were  disposed,  and 
still  are  determined,  at  all  hazards,  and  'come  what  may,'  to  preserve  the 
peace  of  the  city  from  all  domestic  incendiaries,  as  weU  as  to  protect  the 
Union  against  foreign  interference  " 


EFFECTS   OF   THE   KIOTS.  103 

same  day.  The  city  council  had  promised  to  a  meeting  of 
abolitionists,  which  was  announced  to  meet  at  Utica  on  that 
day,  a  hall  in  a  public  building.  On  the  17th  of  October,  a 
public  meeting  was  held  which  put  its  veto  on  this  permis- 
sion. The  abolitionists,  therefore,  four  hundred  in  number, 
met  in  a  Presbyterian  church,  which  had  been  placed  at 
their  disposal.  Scarcely  had  their  proceedings  begun,  when 
the  committee  appointed  by  the  public  meeting  of  the  17th 
appeared,  accompanied  by  great  crowds  of  people,  and  —  the 
county  judge,  Hayden  by  name,  being  their  mouthpiece — 
informed  them  that  they  must  dissolve  without  delay,  and 
that  the  "people"  were  resolved,  by  all  means  in  their 
power,  to  prevent  their  meeting  in  the  city.  As  there  was 
no  doubt  that  violence  would  be  employed,  the  abolitionists 
yielded  to  the  demand  after  the  records  were  torn  from  their 
secretary.^  In  the  evening,  the  office  of  the  Standard  and 
Democrat  received  a  visit  from  the  ''  people,"  who  threw  its 
type  and  other  printing  material  into  the  street.  The  aboli- 
tionists had,  on  the  invitation  of  Gerrit  Smith,  adjourned  to 
his  place  at  Peterboro.  On  the  way  thither,  a  part  of  them 
had  to  endure  severe  ill-treatment  from  the  mob  at  a  place 
called  Yernon.^ 

The  effects  of  all  these  acts  of  brutality  and  violence  — 
the  list  might  be  continued  almost  indefinitely,  but  enough 

'  The  "  Albany  Journal "  writes :  "There  is  not  the  sUghtest  doubt  but 
the  meeting  at  the  court  house  [the  meeting  of  the  17th  of  October],  and 
its  action  through  the  committee,  saved  the  church  from  destruction,  and 
perhaps  the  members  of  the  convention  from  the  tender  mercies  of  an  in- 
furiated populace.  If  they  had  refused  to  receive  the  committee,  or  if  they 
had  attempted  to  continue  their  meeting,  no  power  on  earth  could  have 
saved  the  church  from  bemg  torn  down  upon  the  heads  of  its  occupants." 
According  to  a  report  in  the  "New  York  Journal  of  Commerce"  on 
these  "peaceful  illegalities,"  as  the  "Utica  Observer"  called  them,  the 
multitude  marched  to  the  church  with  "fire  hooks,  ladders  and  rojjes," 
and  even  began  to  demolish  it.    Niles,  XLiX,  pp.  146-149. 

» Ibid.,  p.  183. 


104  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

has  beeu  said  to  characterize  them  —  were  diametricallj  op- 
posed to  those  which  their  instigators  expected. 

The  abolitionists  had  not  only  the  mob  with  its  love  of 
disorder  and  aristocratic  hate  for  the  despised  negro,  the 
demagogues  of  politicians  with  their  competitive  bidding 
for  the  favor  of  the  southern  holders  of  power,  and  the 
selfishness  of  all  who  endeavored  to  allay  every  political 
8torm  that  their  peace  and  money-interests  might  not  be 
put  in  jeopardy,  against  them;  they  also  aroused  the  best 
qualities  of  the  national  character  to  great  and  even  bitter  re- 
sistance against  them.  The  radical  character  of  abolitionism 
was  in  the  most  flagrant  contradiction  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
spirit  of  conservatism.  This  spirit  instinctively  recoiled 
from  a  creed  which  rejected,  on  principle,  any  attempt 
towards  the  adoption  of  a  middle  course,  and  which  declared 
that  under  no  circumstances  could  it  surrender  an  iota  of  its 
demands.  What  angel  had  come  down  and  brought  to  the 
abolitionists  from  the  throne  of  the  Lord  of  the  world,  the 
commission  to  charge  the  whole  nation  —  and  their  fore- 
fathers around  whom  was  the  halo  of  fame —  with  harboring 
and  nursing  in  their  bosom  the  "sum  of  all  villainies,"  and 
to  proclaim  tlie  judgment  of  heaven  against  them,  unless 
they  cast  the  viper  to  the  earth  and  trampled  it  under  foot? 
National  pride  rebelled  against  this  threatening  absolutism 
in  speech,  of  the  prophet  and  the  judge.  It  felt  itself  all  the 
more  severely  wounded,  when  the  prophets  and  the  judges 
had  to  a  certain  extent  divested  themselves  of  their  nation- 
ality. Garrison  had  headed  the  Liberator  with  the  motto: 
"My  country  is  the  world,  my  countrymen  are  all  mankind." 
A  love  for  sonorous  phrases  and  for  an  exaggerated  mode  of 
speech  had  long  been  nurtured  in  the  people  by  the  tribune 
and  the  press,  but  their  more  sober  sense  had  never  permitted 
them  to  be  misled  into  seeing  cosmopolitan  vagueness  and 
extravagance  introduced  as  real  forces  in  the  treatment  of 


CUABACTEB   OF    ABOLITIONISM.  105 

practical  political  questions.  And  the  abolitionists  had  en- 
deavored to  do  this  in  a  manner  which  the  national  good 
sense  of  no  great  people  could  or  should  have  borne  with 
equanimity.  Garrison  had  gone  to  England  to  awaken  active 
sympathy  with  the  efforts  of  the  abolitionists  there,  and 
Englishmen  who  had  earned  great  merit  in  the  cause  of 
emancipation  in  the  English  West  Indies  were  induced  to 
come  to  the  United  States  to  take  part  in  the  agitation  there. 
It  were  both  foolish  and  inequitable  to  wish  to  throw  stonei 
at  the  abolitionists  on  that  account  to-day.  They  were  peo- 
ple completely  governed  by  one  idea,  and  who  were  able  to 
see  this  idea  only  under  the  visual  angle  of  the  absolute 
principle.  But  it  would  be  at  least  as  foolish  and  unjust  to 
make  it  a  matter  of  reproach  to  the  rest  of  the  American 
people  that  they  looked  on  the  dragging  of  foreigners  into 
the  most  difficult  and  important  question  of  their  politics  as 
an  outrage,  and  that  they  refused  to  meet  those  foreigners 
simply  as  the  advocates  of  an  absolute  principle,  as  men 
simply  or  citizens  of  the  world,  and  not  primarily  as  Ameri- 
cans. "Woe  to  the  United  States,  if  there  had  not  been 
enough  fiery  zealous  idealism  and  a  sufficiently  pure  code  of 
ethics  to  call  forth  the  abolitionists,  and  to  make  them  the 
leaven  by  which,  in  the  course  of  decades,  and  under  the 
pressure  of  great  events,  the  entire  population  of  the  free 
states  were  to  be  leavened!  But  woe,  also,  to  the  United 
States,  if  they  had  had  so  little  sense  for  realistic  politics, 
that  the  entire  population  of  the  free  states  should  have 
sided  with  the  abolitionists  immediately,  and  that  the  fruit 
of  tlie  labors  of  these  latter  should  have  been  matured  be- 
fore they  had  sufifered  from  a  severe  conflict  from  within 
and  without,  because  the  conservative  party  was  wanting  in 
moral  force! 

Could  there  now  be  any  doubt  whatever  that  the  immedi- 
ate and  complete  abolition  of  slavery  meant  a  revolution  in 


lOG  Jackson's  ADAnNiSTKATioN  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  existing  circnmstances  of  the  United  States  farther  reach- 
ing and  more- sided  than  any  people  liad  yet  experienced? 
Did  not  the  abolitionists  themselves  bear  witness  to  this,  day 
after  day,  when  they  said  that  slavery  was  poisoning  the  en- 
tire life  of  the  nation?  And  will  any  nation  ever  resolve  to 
take  such  a  step  immediately,  provided  only  the  demands  of 
the  moral  principle  are  placed  in  a  clear  light?  Or  could 
or  should  a  rational  and  politically  viable  people  immedi- 
ately proceed  to  the  solution  of  such  a  problem?  Can  it  be 
said  that  with  the  question,  "What  should  be  done?  the  an- 
swer, How  it  should  be  done,  is  also  given ;  or  can  the  an- 
swer to  such  a  question  be  found  in  a  night?  It  was  a  great 
good  fortune  that  there  were  people  who  cared  only  for  the 
supreme  law,  and  would  bear  of  no  other.  But  at  the  same 
time,  it  would  have  been  a  great  misfortune  if  the  masses  of 
the  people  could  not  have  understood  that,  in  politics,  inter- 
ests which  have  once  begun  to  exist,  in  and  of  themselves, 
obtain  the  character  of  existing  interests,  and,  in  a  certain 
sense  and  to  some  extent,  the  character  of  rights  also.  Sim- 
ple as  the  question  might  be  before  the  court  of  absolute 
morals,  as  a  question  of  practical  politics  it  appeared  only  a 
skein  of  conflicting  interests  and  rights  which  could  not  be 
disentanscled. 

It  could  not  be  questioned  that  the  constitution  had  left 
the  states  complete  discretion  in  what  relates  to  slavery.  And 
•it  was  equally  incontestable,  that  the  slave  states  were  re- 
solved to  continue  the  existence  of  the  institution,  and  that 
its  continued  existence  not  only  seemed  endangered  by  any 
agitation  and  even  by  any  discussion  of  the  question,  but  was 
necessarily  endangered  by  such  agitation  and  discussion. 
Hence  the  efforts  of  the  abolitionists  were  certainly  in  con- 
flict with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  if  we  consider  that 
spirit  from  this  point  of  view.  But  a  coming  into  collision 
with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  should  not  be  suffered,  no 


ANTI-ABOLrnONISTS.  107 

matter  at  what  point  it  might  take  place;  for  if  sucli  vio- 
lence could  be  offered  to  it  at  one  point,  unpunished,  it  could 
no  longer  be  secure  from  presumptuous  attacks  at  any  other. 
And  was  it  not  necessary  that  it  should  be  protected  with  a 
hundred  fold  more  care  precisely  in  the  question  which  had 
already  shaken  the  Union  to  its  foundations?  Where  posi- 
tive law  is  opposed  to  him,  the  thought  and  feeling  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  are  not  easily  turned  into  new  channels.  His 
respect  for  existing  law,  he  carries  almost  to  the  point  of  im- 
movability. To  the  most  irrefutable  proof  of  its  injustice,  he 
can  oppose  as  an  impenetrable  shield  the  only  argument,  that 
existing  law  is,  as  such,  a  moral  force.  In  addition  to  this, 
comes  the  discreet  disposition,  the  development  of  long  ex- 
perience, which  permits  the  wonted  evil  to  continue  even  to 
the  limits  of  the  unendurable  rather  than  run  the  risk  of 
hasty  action. 

All  this  cooperated  to  make  an  immense  majority  of  the 
])opulation  look  with  the  deepest  displeasure  on  the  aboli- 
tionist agitators.^  Many  as  may  have  been  the  impure  ele- 
ments which  were  mixed  up  with  this  feeling  of  displeasure, 
and  frequently  as  these  were  incontestably  preponderant,  it 
was,  on  the  other  hand,  also  an  upright  and  deep  conviction, 
which  did  not  seek  merely  to  hide  its  nakedness  behind  false 
moral  scruples,  but  which  was  really  based  on  justifiable 
moral  principles.  The  assurance  which  people  did  not  tire 
of  repeating,  that  abolitionism  could  not  be  more  strongly 
condemned  at  the  south  than  it  was  at  the  north,  was  the 

'The "Alexandria  Phenix,"  a  witness  who  certainly  cannot  be  objected 
to,  writes  in  1835:  "There  is  no  doubt  with  us  that  the  entire  north, 
from  Maine  to  Maryland,  is  sound  on  the  great  questions  to  which  we  have 
referred.  .  .  •  You  will  find  Tappan  and  Garrison,  and  their  co-labor- 
era,  denounced  wherever  yoa  go;  and  that  with  a  bitterness  and  warmth 
which  must  satisfy  the  most  prejudiced  that  the  north  is  sincere  in  its  re- 
cent exhibition  of  sympathy  and  affection  for  the  south."  Niles,  XLIX, 
p.  80. 


108  Jackson's  admintstbation — annexation  of  texas. 

simple  truth.  But  to  the  person  who  refuses  to  see  anything 
in  this  fact  save  the  infinite  depravity  of  the  north,  under  the 
rule  of  the  slavoeracy,  and  that  of  the  northern  politicians 
enlisted  in  its  service,  all  the  history  that  follows  must  re- 
main an  unintelligible  enigma.  That  there  is  a  contradic- 
tion, such  that  it  is  difiicult  to  imagine  one  more  direct  or 
violent,  running  through  all  that  has  been  said,  can  not,  in- 
deed, be  denied.  But  the  contradiction  lay  in  the  actual  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time  and  in  the  existing  laws  (Rechte). 
Hence  it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  individuals  should 
be  carried  hither  and  thither  between  the  opposing  views,  in 
the  mad  whirl.  They  were  looking  for  a  solution  where  there 
was  no  solution. 

The  reasons  which  induced  the  "  intelligent  and  enlight- 
ened statesmen "  to  consider  abolitionism  as  an  unfortunate 
aberration  or  even  as  an  abomination,  compelled  them  also  to 
lament  and  condemn  the  means  by  which  it  was  sought  to 
suppress  it.  There  was  evidently  no  foundation  whatever 
for  the  worst  charges  which  fanaticism  and  demagogism 
laid  at  the  door  of  the  abolitionists.  It  had  never  entered 
their  minds  to  incite  an  uprising  of  the  slaves.  They  had 
never  shown  any  enthusiasm  for  an  amalgamation  of  the 
races.  Rather  did  they,  whenever  occasion  offered,  declare 
that  "God  Himself"  had  placed  a  barrier  between  them. 
The  reproach,  that  they  desired  to  spur  on  the  government 
of  the  Union  to  the  adoption  of  a  course  inimical  to  slav- 
ery, they  unconditionally  repelled.  They  unreservedly  ac- 
knowledged that  all  constitutional  authority  to  do  this  was 
wanting,  and  they  declared  that  it  was  as  much  their  desire 
as  that  of  the  most  radical  states-rights  man,  to  keep  mthin 
the  limits  of  the  constitution.  Tliey  asked  the  Federal  gov- 
ernment to  take  action  only  in  relation  to  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  that  the  constitution  authorized  it  to  do  that 
was  maintained  by  many  who  had  nothing  in  common  with 


THE    ABOLITIONISTS.  109 

the  abolitionists.  Besides  this,  they  only  asked  that  slavery 
should  not  be  supported  nor  promoted  in  any  way  by  the 
Union.  Their  own  action  was  to  be  confined  entirely  to  the 
employment  of  moral  means.  What,  then,  was  it  that  made 
them  "  fiends  in  human  shape,"  *  who  should  be  and  must 
be  looked  upon  and  treated  by  honest  men,  in  patriotic  union 
with  candidates  for  the  house  of  correction,  as  outlaws  1 
Why  should  not  Jefferson's  honored  saying,  that  error  is 
harmless  so  long  as  reason  is  not  prevented  combating  it, 
be  applied  to  them?  Much  as  it  might  be  the  duty  of  the 
"  patriots  "  to  oppose  them  by  all  legal  means,  how  could  it 
be  justifiable  to  make  no  means  used  to  persecute  them 
reprehensible?  Would  it  concern  only  the  abolitionists,  if 
the  blind  rage  of  judge  Lynch  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of 
the  code  in  accordance  with  the  provisions  of  which  they 
were  to  be  judged?'^  In  what  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  law 
insured,  when  public  opinion  sanctions  such  proscriptions  of 
a  conviction?  Or  was  the  conviction  so  monstrous  a  one, 
that  the  eternal  principles  of  right  and  of  morals,  against 
which  no  law  can  prevail,  imperatively  demanded  its  sup- 
pression ?  Let  the  tongue  of  calumny  say  what  it  might,  so 
long  as  it  could  not  slay  the  consciences  of  men,  so  long 
could  it  not  stifle  the  feeling  that  abolitionism  was  the  cry 
of  revolted  conscience.  What,  then,  could  it  be  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  profound  psychologists  of  the  south,  stirred  the 
demon  in  these  men  to  cast  the  brand  of  an  unappeasable 
conflict  among  the  nation?  Their  only  reward  was  censure, 
spleen,  hatred  and    ill-treatment.     When,  notwithstanding 

'  Brown,  of  North  Carolina,  called  them,  in  1836,  in  the  senate,  "  fienda 
in  human  shape,  who  would  endeavor  to  lay  waste  the  happiness  and  hb- 
erties  of  this  country."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  709, 

•Niles  writes,  October,  1835:  "In  the  south  we  almost  daily  hear  of 
'judge  Lynch,'  and  of  persons  who  are  flogged  and  driven  away  or  'exe- 
cuted '  under  sentences  rendered  by  him."    XLIX,  p.  65. 


110  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

this  and  the  paucity  of  their  numbers,  a  cry  came  from  the 
whole  south  as  if  it  had  been  mortally  stung  by  a  viper,  and 
the  north  londly  echoed  it  back,  was  there  any  other  expla- 
nation of  the  phenomena  except  that  there  lay  an  irrepres- 
sible truth  of  overpowering  force  in  the  creed  of  the  aboli- 
tionists? Was  there,  then,  any  further  proof  of  it  needed? 
Had  the  north,  then,  ceased  unanimously  to  declare  slavery 
the  heaviest  curse  with  which  providence  could  burthen  a 
country?  And  how  long  ago  was  it  that  the  south  had 
just  as  unanimously,  at  least  with  its  lips,  acquiesced  in  this 
view?  How,  then,  could  the  abolitionists  be  outcasts  of  hu- 
man society,  simply  because  they  drew  a  plain,  simple  con- 
clusion from  that  confession? 

Thought,  conscience  and  the  feeling  of  liberty  had  not  so 
far  decayed  in  the  north,  that  the  hue  and  cry  raised  against 
the  abolitionists  did  not  force  these  questions  on  ever  growing 
circles  of  people.  Those  who  were  led  over  to  the  abolition- 
ist camp  by  these  means  continued,  indeed,  to  remain  an 
evanescent  minority,  and  this  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  soon 
began  to  be  numbered  by  thousands.^  But  the  number 
of  those  who  after  as  before,  lamented  and  condemned 
the  abolitionist  agitation,  but  who  began  to  perceive  with 
horror  that  they  and  the  whole  country  were  threatened 
with  frightful  danger  from  the  persecutors  of  the  abolition- 
ists, increased  incomparably  faster.  The  south  did  every- 
thing in  its  power  to  open  their  eyes  to  this  fact.  Its  rage 
seemed  to  have  robbed  it  of  the  power  of  deliberation.  All 
constitutional  law,  the  fundamental  principles  of  •  the  free 
views  handed  down  by  tradition  from  their  fathers,  were 
cast  to  the  ground  and  trampled  under  foot  in  order  to 
strangle  abolitionism  in  its  cradle.     Governor  Lumpkin,  of 

'  In  August,  1835,  there  were  263  anti-slaveiy  societies.  In  December  of 
the  same  year,  there  were  350.  Letter  of  the  executive  committee  of  the 
New  York  anti-slavery  society  to  president  Jackson,  December  26,  1835. 
Jay,  Misc.  Writ,  p.  368. 


ABOLITIONISTS   PEESECUTED.  IH 

Georgia,  on  the  26th  of  December,  1831,  had  signed  an  act 
of  the  legislature  which  promised  a  reward  of  $5,000  to  the 
person  who  would  bring  Garrison  there  to  be  judged  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  the  state.  That  is  to  say,  the  state 
of  Georgia  offered  a  prize  for  the  commission  of  a  crime  I 
And  for  what  a  crime!  In  the  form  of  a  law,  Georgia  pro- 
claimed to  the  whole  Union  that  it  claimed  that  it  might 
take  all  the  banditti  in  the  Union  into  its  service  to  rid 
itself  of  any  person  who  incurred  its  displeasure.  And 
Georgia  seemed  not  to  have  become  insane  alone.  When, 
three  years  later,  the  rumor  ran  that  $100,000  were  to  be 
paid  to  the  person  who  should  apprehend  Arthur  Tappan, 
the  Richmond  Whig  commented  bitterly  on  the  fact  that 
the  press  of  New  York  thought  it  had  ground  to  complain.* 
The  Charleston  Courier  asserted  that  the  "  mimic  fact "  of 
the  burning  of  Garrison,  Cox  and  Tappan  would  be  trans- 
formed into  a  "real  tragedy  "the  moment  hands  could  be 
laid  upon  them.'  In  South  Carolina,  an  agitation  was  started 
to  bring  the  whole  south  to  the  resolution  to  dissolve  all 
business  intercourse  with  those  northern  cities  and  states 

'  "  Tbe  '  New  York  American '  considers  it  monstroas  that  Arthur  Tappan 
should  be  menaced  with  kidnapping.  Very  unreasonable  indeed!  The 
scoundrel  who  has  set  a  whole  country  in  a  flame,  tightened  the  discipline 
upon  two  millions  of  people,  and  subjected  innocent  men  to  the  lash,  ought 
by  all  means  to  enjoy  unmolested  security."  Niles,  XLIX,  p.  73.  Another 
sheet  gives  vent  to  its  rage  against  Tappan  in  the  following  imprecation: 
"  He  must  now  experience  some  of  these  awful  sensations  and  terrific  im- 
ages that  he  has  been  the  cause  of  exciting  in  thousands  of  innocent 
breasts  in  the  southern  states.  If  he  starts  from  his  guilty  slumbers  with 
the  visioned  hand  of  the  murderer  pointing  the  bloody  dagger  at  his  breast, 
let  him,  while  every  limb  quakes,  and  while  the  cold  terror  sweat  stands 
in  bubbles  on  his  brow,  reflect,  that  it  was  him  (sic)  who  drove  sweet  sleep 
and  happiness  from  the  tearful  eye  of  many  a  southern  matron  and  maid. 
Tliat  it  was  him  (sic)  who  made  the  name  of  Tappan  synonymous  with 
mcendiary  —  midnight  murderer — assassin !  Let  him  '  sleep  no  more '  — . 
he  '  has  murdered  sleep.'  "    Niles,  XLIX,  p.  75. 

» Ibid.,  p.  74. 


112  Jackson's  administration —  annexation  of  texas. 

which  did  not  oppress  the  abolitionists.  In  other  parts  of 
the  south,  this  idea  was  taken  up  bj  the  papers  with  fiery 
zeal,  and  thej  endeavored  to  convince  themselves  and  the 
north  that  the  execution  of  the  plan  was  fully  assured.  With 
great  ingenuousness,  they  acted,  in  this  matter,  as  if  all  that 
was  needed  was  that  they  should  take  the  resolution  referred 
to ;  that  is,  as  if  the  north  owed  it  entirely  to  the  magnanimity 
and  favor  of  the  south,  that  it  had  thus  far  been  permitted 
to  act  as  a  mediator  in  trade  between  it  and  the  rest  of  the 
world.* 

'  "  Let  non-importation  agreements  be  entered  into  by  a  proper  com- 
bination among  those  engaged  in  trade  at  the  south,  to  cease  all  inter- 
course with  places  that  show  hostility,  or  a  criminal  indifference  to  our 
rights  and  interests."  ("  The  Charleston  Patriot.")  "  Let  our  planters  and 
cotton  buyers  in  the  interior  compel  the  American  cotton  and  rice  trade  to 
concentrate  on  the  seaboard  of  the  cotton  and  rice  growing  states.  There 
is  no  need  of  sending  their  produce  to  be  stored  in  New  York  to  insure  a 
speedy  realization  of  the  proceeds.  Why  not  store  it  here?  Our  banks 
are  able  and  willing  to  advance  to  every  reasonable  extent.  Let  us  then 
take  our  own  trade  with  Europe  into  our  own  hands,  and  assert,  at  least, 
our  commercial  independence  of  the  north.  Let  the  whole  people  of  the 
soutii  urge  and  encourage  their  merchants  to  effect  this  patriotic  and  union 
preserving  object.  Let  it  be  one  of  the  chief  subjects  of  deliberation  in  the 
convention  of  the  southern  states,  if  that  convention  is  called,  as  we  trust 
it  will  be  in  accordance  with  the  Charleston  resolutions;  in  the  end  the  step 
must  result,  not  only  in  the  greater  stability  of  southern  institutions,  but 
in  southern  wealth,  derived  from  retaining  at  home  all  those  benefits  of 
southern  industry  on  which  northern  enterprise  now  fattens.  It  may 
starve  some  of  the  restless  spirits  of  fanaticism  out  of  their  present  purse- 
fed  insolence,  and,  at  any  rate,  will  compel  the  trading  community  in  that 
section,  to  attempt,  by  striking  down  this  hell- bom  monster  of  hypocrisy 
at  home,  to  win  back  the  confidence  which  once  gave  them  a  rich  portion 
of  the  products  of  southern  labor. "  ( "  The  New  Orleans  Bee. ")  "  The  sug- 
gestion of  acting  upon  fanaticism  by  withholding  the  profits  of  southern 
commerce  from  those  engaged  either  actively  or  by  countenance,  in  prop- 
agating its  designs,  is  obtaining  extensive  popularity.  A  general  persuasion 
prevails  of  its  efficacy  .  .  .  Southern  commerce  is  essential  to  the  north. 
Without  it  their  cities  had  been  fishing  villages  and  whaling  stations ; 
without  it  they  would  soon  feel  the  touch  of  decay  ...  it  will  render  u.; 


THE   SOUTH   DISSATISFIED.  113 

But  it  did  not  stop  with  demonstrations  of  tlie  press  and 
irresponsible  public  meetings.  The  zeal  with  which  the 
north  had  shaken  off  the  abolitionists  by  no  means  satisfied 
the  south.  Even  where,  as  in  Albany  and  Philadelphia, 
people  had  humbled  themselves  to  the  dust  before  it,  they 
obtained  but  little  thanks.  "  Nothing  is  wanting,  indeed," 
said  the  Richmond  Whig,  sneering  at  the  Albany  meeting, 
"  but  that  which  being  wanting,  all  the  rest  we  fear  is  little 
more  than  '  a  sounding  brass  and  a  tinkling  cymbal.' "  And 
a  correspondent  of  the  Augusta  Chronicle  complained: 
"Words,  words,  words  are  all  we  are  to  have."  But  the 
south  cared  little  for  these.  Much  as  it  feared  the  words  of 
the  abolitionists,  the  words  of  the  anti-abolitionists  of  the 
north  were  valueless  to  it.  With  one  voice,  as  it  were,  the 
southern  press  demanded  the  gagging  of  the  abolitionists 
by  penal  laws.  "  Up  to  the  mark  the  north  must  come  if 
it  would  restore  tranquillity  and  preserve  the  Union,"  said 
the  Richmond  Whig.  And  a  whole  series  of  state  legisla- 
tures soon  joined  in  the  demands  of  the  press.^    Alabama 

less  dependent  on  the  north,  build  up  southern  cities,  invigorate  southeni 
trade,  open  a  direct  intercourse  with  the  markets  of  Europe,  and  seciue  to 
southern  citizens  those  immense  profits  on  southern  business  which  are 
now  principally  monopoUzed  in  New  York  .  .  .  That  the  south  should 
transact  her  own  buying  and  selling,  without  the  intervention  of  northern 
agfents,  who  run  away  with  the  profits,  is  a  proposition  so  undeniably  true, 
and  an  end  so  patriotic,  that  every  hand  and  every  heart  should  be  united 
to  effect  it.  The  south  would  then  find  some  equivalent  for  sustaining  the 
almost  entire  burden  of  the  government  of  the  Union."  ("  The  Richmond 
Whig.")  Seven  years  before  the  same  paper  said:  "It  is  the  condition 
of  their  masters,  weighed  down  and  impoverished  by  the  nature  of  negro 
slavery  —  and  of  Virginia,  bhghted  and  held  back  in  the  glorious  race  of 
improvement  and  power  by  the  same  cause,  that  impels  us  to  pray  for  its 
final  extinction,  and  enlists  our  sympathies  in  behalf  of  colonization 
schemes."    Niles,  XLIX,  pp.  74,  77,  78,  80. 

'  *'  Resolved,  That  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina,  having  every  coaft- 
dence  in  the  justice  and  friendship  of  the  non-slaveholding  states,  an- 
nounces hur  confident  expectation,  and  she  earnestly  requests,  that  the 
8 


114  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

went  a  step  farther  still.  The  grand  jury  of  Tuscaloosa 
county  found  an  indictment,  on  the  25th  of  September, 
1835,  against  Eobert  G.  "Williams,  publisher  of  the  Eman- 
cipator, in  New  York,  for  the  dissemination  of  seditious 
articles.  Thereupon,  Governor  J.  Gayle  made  a  requi- 
sition on  Governor  Marcy,  of  New  York,  on  the  14th  of 
November,  to  give  Williams  up,  in  accordance  with  art.  lY, 
sec.  2,  §  2  of  the  constitution,  that  he  might  be  tried  under  the 
laws  of  the  state  of  Alabama.  Gayle  admitted  that  the 
wording  of  the  provision  in  question  made  it  possible  to 
doubt  whether  his  demand  was  justifiable,  as  Williams  "  was 
not  in  the  state  when  the  crime  was  committed,"  and  had 
not  "  fled  therefrom ;  "  that  is,  the  two  conditions  on  which 
the  constitution  had  made  the  surrender  of  a  criminal  de- 
pendent were  wanting  here.  Tlie  governor,  however,  was  of 
opinion  that  the  wording  of  the  constitution  could  not  be 
decisive  in  this  case,  because  Williams  had  "evaded  the  jus- 
tice "  of  the  laws  of  the  state  of  which  he  was  governor.^ 

government  of  these  states  will  promptly  and  effectually  suppress  all  those 
associations  within  their  respective  limits,  purporting  to  be  abolition  so- 
cieties."   Dec.  16, 1835. 

*' Resolved.  That  our  sister  states  are  respectfully  requested  to  enact 
penallaws  prohibiting  the  printing,  within  their  respective  limits,  all  such 
publications  as  may  have  a  tendency  to  make  our  slaves  discontented." 
General  Assembly  of  North  Carolina,  Dec.  19,  1835. 

"  Resolved,  That  we  caU  upon  our  sister  states,  and  respectfully  request 
them  to  enact  such  penal  laws  as  will  finally  put  an  end  to  the  malignant 
deeds  of  the  abolitionists."    Alabama  Legislature,  Jan.  7,  1836. 

*'  Resolved,  That  the  non-slaveholding  states  of  the  Union  are  respect- 
fully but  earnestly  requested  promptly  to  adopt  penal  enactments,  or  such 
other  measures  as  wiU  effectually  suppress  all  associations  within  their  re- 
spective limits  purporting  to  be,  or  having  the  character  of  abolition 
societies.''  Virginia  Legislature,  Feb.  16,  1836.  Goodell,  Slavery  and 
Anti-Slavery,  pp.  413,  414. 

*  See  the  documents  in  Niles,  XLIX,  pp.  358-360.  The  following  pas- 
sage, from  the  message  which  accompanied  the  requisition,  deserves  to  be 
literally  quoted :  "  It  has  been  improperly  admitted  by  writera  in  the 
south,  who  have  engaged  in  discussing  this  subject,  that  the  constitu- 


SLAVERY   AND   FREEDOM   OF   6PEE0H.  115 

These  demands  decided  the  turn  which  public  opinion 
took  in  the  free  states,  and  for  which  the  way  had  ah-eady 
been  prepared.  A  committee  of  the  Massachusetts  legisla- 
tiire^  indeed,  drew  up  pompous  resolutions  against  the  aboli- 
tionists;^ the  legislature  of  New  York  adopted  a  report 
which  promised  to  accede  to  the  wishes  of  the  south,''  and 
the  governors  of  both  states,  Edward  Everett  and  William 
L.  Marcy,  showed  themselves  highly  favorable  to  the  re- 
quest which  had  been  made.'  But  the  penal  laws  demanded 
were  actually  passed  nowhere,  and  the  time  when  Garrison, 
a  rope  about  his  neck,  could  be  dragged  through  the  streets 
of  Boston  by  "a  very  gentlemanly  rabble,"  was  passed  for- 
ever. The  south  had  over-strained  the  bow.  It  did  not  yet 
break,  but  the  string  snapped,  and  wounded  the  marksman 
severel3^  There  are  conflicts  in  which  a  single  attack  re- 
pelled is  a  defeat  which  cannot  be  compensated  for  by  any 
subsequent  victory. 

The  first  amendment  to  the  constitution  forbids  congress 
to  make  any  law  "  abridging  the  freedom  of  the  press."  The 
federal  constitution  puts  no  restriction  whatever  on  the  sev- 
eral states  in  this  respect.  Tlie  constitutions  of  all  the  states, 
however,  guarantee*  the  freedom  of  the  press.'     But  the 

tion  and  laws  of  the  United  States,  in  regard  to  fugitives  from  justice, 
do  not  authorize  a  demand  for  the  delivery  of  these  incendiaries  to  the 
states  whose  laws  they  have  violated.  This  opinion  has  been  embraced 
under  the  erroneous  impression  that  the  rules  of  strict  construction  which, 
with  great  propriety,  apply  to  certain  parts  of  the  constitution  must  neces- 
sarily apply  to  all  others." 

>  Niles,  L,  p.  87. 

•Goodell,  p.  420. 

•Ibid.,  p. 415. 

*  The  word  '*  guarantee' '  is  purposely  chosen  here.  The  expressions  used 
in  the  provisions  in  question  make  the  right  appear  throughout,  not  as  a 
newly  created  one,  but  as  one  already  existing.  They  must,  therefore,  be 
so  construed  as  to  make  them  gfuaranty  the  freedom  of  the  press  only  aa 
the  common  law  understands  it. 

*The  provisions  are  to  be  found  in  Cooley,  Const.  Lim.,  pp.  414,  417. 


116  Jackson's  administeation  —  anitrxation  of  texas. 

authorities  on  constitutional  law  all  agree  that  these  guaran- 
ties, according  to  the  common  law,  are  to  be  considered  only 
as  a  prohibition  of  all  preventive  censure.^  On  the  other 
hand,  however,  the  opinion  universally  prevails  that,  in  view 
of  the  changed  views  and  circumstances  of  the  times,  the  im- 
port of  these  constitutional  provisions  cannot  be  exhausted 
by  such  an  interpretation.  The  limits  of  their  extension  is 
given  in  the  maxim:  sic  utere  tuo,  ut  non  alienum  laedas? 

So  far  as  constitutional  law  was  involved  in  the  question, 
this  was  the  light  in  which  the  demands  of  the  slave  states 
had  to  be  examined. 

The  slave  interest  was  unquestionably  right  when  it  con- 
sidered itself  damaged  by  the  abolitionist  press.  And  it  was 
just  as  unquestionable,  that  the  federal  constitution  looked 
upon  slavery  as  a  fact  existing  by  right,  since  it  contained 
three  provisions  in  favor  of  the  slaveholders.  But  as  it 
was,  further,  a  universally  admitted  principle  of  constitu- 
tional law,  that  the  federal  constitution  is  a  part  of  the  con- 
stitution of  each  of  the  states,  it  was  plain  that  the  allegation 
of  the  slave  states,  that,  in  their  demands,  they  had  set  up 
no  anti-constitutional  request,  but  that  their  demands  were 
entirely  in  harmony  with  the  meaning  of  the  constitution, 
was  well  founded,  provided  the  freedom  of  the  press  was 
to  be  considered  limited  in  the  manner  intimated  above. 

Could  such  obligations  be  recognized  by  the  free  states? 

'Kent,  Comm.,  I,  p.  612  (II,  p.  21);  Story,  Comm.,  II,  p.  617  (§  1889); 
Cooley,  p.  420.  See  also  Blackstone,  Comm,,  IV,  p.  151;  De  Lolme,  Const, 
of  Eng.,  p.  254. 

*  Cooley,  p.  422,  says:  "  The  constitutional  liberty  of  speech  and  of  the 
press  .  .  .  implies  a  tight  to  freely  utter  and  publish  whatever  the 
citizen  please,  and  to  be  protected  aguinst  any  responsibility  for  the  pub- 
lication, except  80  far  as  such  publications,  from  their  blasphemy,  obscenity 
or  scandalous  character,  may  be  a  public  offence,  or  as,  by  their  falsehood 
and  malice,  they  may  ii^juriously  affect  the  private  character  of  indi- 
viduals." 


SLAVERY   DOOMED.  117 

Unquestionably  they  never  could,  not  even  if  they  had  been 
imposed  by  the  constitution  in  the  most  express  terms,  in- 
stead of  being  deductions  from  very  general  expressions, 
which  left  the  largest  scope  for  the  arts  of  the  dialectician 
and  the  sophist. 

The  resolutions  of  the  legislature  of  North  Carolina,  above 
referred  to,  demanded  the  suppression  of  every  "  publication  " 
which  tended  to  make  the  slaves  of  the  south  dissatisfied. 
It  was  self-evident  that  the  other  slave  states  would  have  to 
go  as  far  as  this  in  their  definition  of  abolitionism,  if  they 
were  to  be  fully  secured  against  the  dreaded  dangers.  And 
it  was  just  as  self-evident,  that  every  expression  concerning 
slavery,  not  uttered  in  the  sense  of  the  slaveholder,  tended 
to  create  dissatisfaction  among  the  slaves,  once  it  reached 
their  ears.  Hence  the  demands  of  the  slave  states  meant 
nothing  more  or  less  than  that  all  discussion  of  slavery  in 
the  free  states  should  be  prohibited.  Was  there  a  single 
slaveholder  bold  enough  to  claim  that  such  a  prohibition 
could  be  reconciled  with  the  guaranty  of  the  freedom  of  the 
press?  There  was  no  need  of  a  knowledge  of  constitutional 
law  to  find  the  proper  answer  to  this  question;  sound  com- 
mon sense  is  sufficient  rightly  to  estimate  its  absurdity  ah 
initio.  Were  it  not  that  people  were  under  the  pressure  of 
custom,  sound  common  sense  would  have  sufficed  to  discover 
further,  that  the  contradiction  and  the  absurdity  lay  in  the 
constitution  itself:  slavery  and  the  freedom  of  the  press  can- 
not exist  side  by  side.  But  so  long  as  the  free  states  had 
not  become  slave  states,  that  is,  so  long  as  any  opposition 
between  the  two  halves  of  the  Union,  with  its  roots  in  slavery, 
continued,  the  north  could  not  surrender  the  freedom  of  the 
press  in  relation  to  slavery.  Unconditionally  as  it  might 
condemn  the  radicalism  of  the  abolitionists,  every  resolve  to 
bring  the  discussion  on  slavery  to  a  close  was,  so  long  as  it 
Btill  saw  that  slavery  was  an  evil,  meaningless.     A  nation 


118  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

that,  with  full  consciousness  that  it  was  suffering  from  a 
great  evil,  proliibited  and  punished  any  discussion  of  the 
means  of  contending  with  that  evil,  would  be  consciously 
and  in  principle  decreeing  away  its  own  capacity  to  live. 
And  there  was  question  here,  not  of  temporary  exceptional 
measures  made  necessary  by  a  transitory  and  exceptional 
condition  of  thino:3. 

The  south  had  taken  care  to  make  all  self-deception  on  this 
point  impossible.  Governor  McDufile,  of  South  Carolina, 
had,  as  early  as  1834,  in  a  message  to  the  legislature,  called 
slavery  "  the  corner  stone  of  our  republican  edifice."  ^  The 
Charleston  ^''owriVr  expressed  its  firm  conviction,  that  slavery 
in  the  southern  states  would  be  perpetual ;  ^  and  the  CoIuto- 
hia  Telescope  agreed  with  it,  with  the  beast-like  emphasis  of 
the  "  fire-eater  "  of  the  genuine  stamp.^ 

' "  Domestic  slavery,  therefore,  instead  of  being  a  political  evil,  is  the 
comer  stone  of  our  republican  edifice.  No  patxiot  who  justly  estimates 
our  privileges  wUl  tolerate  the  idea  of  emancipation,  at  any  period,  how- 
ever remote,  or  on  any  condition  of  pecuniary  advantages,  however  favor- 
able. I  would  as  soon  open  a  negotiation  for  seUing  the  liberty  of  the  state 
at  once,  as  for  making  any  stipulations  for  the  ultimate  emancipation  of 
our  slaves."  Referring  to  the  aboUtionists  he  says:  "  Ifc  is  my  deliberate 
opinion  that  the  laws  of  every  community  should  punish  this  species  of 
interference  by  death,  without  the  benefit  of  clergy,  regarding  the  authors 
of  it  as  enemies  of  the  human  race."  Niles,  LXI,  p.  140.  James  G. 
Hammond,  who  was  elected  governor  of  the  state  in  1842,  wiites  to 
Thomas  Clarkson:  "I  indorse,  without  reserve,  the  sentiment  of  Gov- 
ernor McDuffie,  that  '  slavery  is  the  very  comer  stone  of  our  repubUcan 
edifice,'  while  I  repudiate  as  ridiculously  absurd,  that  much  lauded,  but 
nowhere  accredited  motto  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  that  '  all  men  are  bora  free 
and  equal.'  "  "We  may  here  call  to  mind  the  saying  of  Madison :  "  Where 
slavery  exists,  the  republican  theory  becomes  still  more  fallacious."  June 
19,  1787.    Madis.  Papers,  p.  899. 

*"  As  respects  the  institution  of  slavery,  we  firmly  believe  that  it  will 
be  perpetual  in  the  south;  and,  to  say  the  least,  are  certain  that  ages  must 
roll  into  the  eternity  of  the  past,  before  any  scheme  of  general  emancipa- 
tion can  be  attempted,  with  the  remotest  probability  of  success."  Niles, 
XLIX,  p.  74. 

^ "  Let  us  declare  through  the  public  journals  of  our  country,  that  the 


BEFUGEE   SLAVES.  119 

The  south,  by  this  absence  of  moderation,  became  the  best 
ally  of  th*e  abolitionists.  Niles  complains:  "These  things, 
on  the  part  of  the  south,  have  caused  a  great  reaction  in  the 
north;"  and  the  Boston  Cou/rier  said  that  they  had  made 
more  converts  to  abolitionism  in  three  months  than  the  aboli- 
tionists themselves  had  been  able  to  win  over  in  three  years.' 

question  of  slavery  is  not,  and  shall  not  be  open  to  discussion — that  the 
system  is  deep  rooted  among  us,  and  must  remain  forever — that  the  very 
moment  any  private  individual  attempts  to  lecture  us  upon  its  evils  and 
immorality,  and  the  necessity  of  putting  means  in  operation  to  secure  us 
from  them,  in  the  same  moment  his  tongue  shall  be  cut  out  and  cast  upon 
the  dunghill."    Ibid.,  65. 

•  "The."  Boston  Courier  "  published  at  this  time  a  poem,  the  last  versea 
of  which  I  here  give  because  they  afford  eloquent  testimony,  in  a  charac- 
teristic way,  to  the  reaction  which  had  begun : 

"Is't  not  enough  that  this  is  borne? 

And  asks  our  haughty  neighbor  more? 

Must  fetters  which  his  slaves  have  worn 

Clank  round  the  Yankee  farmer's  door? 

Must  he  be  told,  beside  his  plow, 

What  he  must  speak,  and  when  and  how  f 

Must  he  be  told  his  freedom  stands 
On  slavery's  dark  foundations  strong  — 
On  breaking  hearts  and  fettered  hands. 
On  robbeiy  and  crime  and  wrong? 
That  all  his  fathers  taught  is  vain  — 
That  freedom's  emblem  is  the  chain? 

Its  Ufa—  its  soul,  from  slavery  drawn? 
False— foul  — profane!  go  teach  us  well 
Of  holy  truth  from  falsehood  bom  — 
Of  heaven  refreshed  by  airs  from  heUl 
Of  v'atxxe  nursed  by  open  vice  — 
Of  demons  planting  paradise! 

Rail  on  then,  'brethren  of  the  south  '  — 
Ye  shall  not  hear  the  truth  the  less — 
No  seal  is  on  the  Yankee's  mouth, 
No  fetter  on  the  Yankee's  press! 
From  our  Green  mountains  to  the  sea. 
One  voice  shall  thunder  —  we  are  free  t " 


120  Jackson's  ADiiiNiSTRATiON  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Ten  months  after  the  mayor  of  Boston  had  succeeded  with 
difficulty  in  saving  Garrison  from  the  mob,  in  a  jadl,  it  hap- 
pened in  Boston  that  two  female  refugee  slaves  were  taken 
from  the  court  house,  placed  in  a  carriage  that  was  in  wait- 
ing for  them,  and  carried  off  from  their  hunters  from  Bal- 
timore.^ 

The  history  of  the  succeeding  period  excludes  the  assump- 
tion that  the  south  learned  anything  from  this  incipient 
reaction.  It  was  to  be  ascribed  neither  to  a  rfeturn  to  com- 
parative moderation  nor  to  a  greater  consideration  for  the 
demands  of  prudence,  that  the  rage  against  the  abolitionists 
through  the  press  and  at  popular  meetings,  gradually  abated 
somewhat.  The  proximate  cause  of  this  was  the  recognition 
that  the  immediate  object  of  the  agitation  could  not  be  at- 
tained. The  public  became  weary  of  listening  to  this  loud- 
voiced  declamation,  as  no  practical  result  from  it  could  be 
discovered;  and  when  the  public  grew  tired  of  it,  the  press 
and  public  speakers  were  compelled  to  endeavor  to  hold  their 
attention  in  some  other  way.  Asperity  and  alarm  continued 
as  great  as  before;  only  the  mode  of  agitation  was  changed 
in  part.  The  demonstrations  of  the  audience  in  the  parterre 
grew  less  frequent  and  noisy,  but  more  life  was  put  into  the 
play  on  the  stage,  and  the  complication  of  the  tragic  plot 
continued. 

Even  before  the  establishment  of  the  Liberator  and  the 
conspiracy  of  Turner,  the  slave  states  had  begjpi  to  protect 
themselves  by  a  rampart  of  Draconian  laws  against  every- 
thing in  the  shape  of  print  which  was  calculated,  as  the 
conventional  phrase  had  it,  to  excite  dissatisfaction  among 
the  slaves,  or  to  incite  them  to  insurrection.  In  1830  even, 
"  when  the  evil  was  comparatively  in  its  infancy,"  as  Gov- 
ernor Swain  expressed  himself,  a  law  of  North  Carolina 
declared  the  publishing  or  dissemination  of  such  printed 

>SeeNaes,L,p.387. 


ABOLITIONISTS   PEESECUTKD.  121 

mutter  a  felony,  and  made  the  first  offense  punishable  by 
fine,  whippin_^  and  the  pillory,  and  the  second  with  death.* 
In  Maryland,  a  law  of  1831  punished  the  same  act  with 
detention  in  the  house  of  correction  for  not  less  than  ten 
nor  more  than  twenty  years.-  Georgia  cast  the  evil  doers 
into  the  house  of  correction;  Louisiana  hanged  them;  all 
the  slave  states  threatened  them  with  severe  penalties.'  And 
now  all  these  safeguards  threatened  to  become  illusory.  The 
pious  wish  that  the  abolitionists  might  come  within  "  catch- 
ing distance"  remained  unfulfilled;  but  the  products  of  their 
press  were  carried  whithersoever  they  wished  by  the  United 
States  mail.  The  rage  which  took  possession  of  the  south 
cannot  be  imagined,  when,  in  the  summer  of  1835,  the  first 
great  shipments  were  discovered.  South  Carolina,  as  usual, 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  ultras.  The  Southern  Patriot^ 
published  in  Charleston,  declared,  on  the  29th  of  July:  "If 
the  general  postoffice  is  not  at  liberty  to  act  in  this  manner 
[to  prevent  the  circulation  of  the  papers],  it  is  impossible  to 
answer  for  the  security  of  the  mails  in  this  portion  of  the 
country."  The  following  night,  the  postofiice  building  of  the 
city  was  broken  into,  a  bag  containing  tracts  and  papers  was 
taken  out,  and  it  was  announced  that  its  contents  would  be 
publicly  burned  the  following  day.  The  sheet  just  men- 
tioned was  of  opinion  that  the  act  of  violence  was  an  over- 
hasty  one;  that  it  would  have  been  time  "to  take  the  law 
into  their  own  hands  when  an  unsatisfactory  answer  had 
come  from  the  general  postofiice.  But  we  would  suggest 
that  whatever  be  done  in  that  way,  let  it  be  performed  in 
open  daylight  and  on  the  highway,  and  that  persons  of  re- 
sponsibility and  weight  of  character  be  deputed  to  act  in  the 
name  and  for  the  good  of  the  whole  of  the  citizens."  *  These 
suggestions  were  followed,  inasmuch  as  a  meeting  of  the 

'  Niles,  XLIX,  p.  228.  » Ibid.,  LVIII,  p.  230. 

« Ibid.,  XLIX,  p.  8.  « Ibid..  XLVIII,  pp.  402, 40^. 


122  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

people  nominated  a  "committee  of  safety"  of  twenty-oue 
members  on  the  4tli  of  August.  This  committee  put  itself 
in  communication  with  the  postmaster  of  the  city,  who,  in 
everything,  readily  acceded  to  its  wishes.  With  the  utmost 
harmon}'-,  it  was  established  what  "incendiary"  publications 
were,  and  their  delivery  to  the  persons  they  were  addressed 
to  neglected.  A  second  large  popular  meeting,  on  the  10th 
of  August,  brought  the  "  patriotic  "  uprising  to  a  provisional 
close.  The  resolutions  passed  there  reached  their  climax  in 
the  usual  flourish  —  a  convention  of  the  slave  states  and  the 
eventual  dissolution  of  the  Union.' 

The  complacency  of  the  postmaster  of  Charleston  did 
not,  however,  confine  itself  to  the  above  mentioned  kind- 
nesses, lie  wrote  to  his  colleague  in  'New  York,  and  re- 
quested him  to  prohibit  the  transmission  of  the  incendiary 
publications.  The  latter  at  first  asked  the  anti-slavery  society 
to  suspend  the  sending  of  their  publications  until  he  had 
received  instructions  from  the  postmaster  general.  As  he 
received  an  answer  refusing  this  request,  he  announced  that 
their  publications  would  not  be  sent  until  further  notice.^ 

On  the  22d  of  August  the  postmaster  general,  Amos 
Kendall,  answered  the  request  for  instructions  in  a  long  let- 
ter,* which  calls  for  a  more  careful  consideration.  Kendall 
begins  with  the  declaration:  "  That  the  postmaster  general 
has  no  legal  authority  ...  to  exclude  from  the  mails 
any  species  of  newspapers,  magazines  or  pamphlets;  such  a 
power  vested  in  the  head  of  this  department  would  be  fear- 
fully dangerous  and  has  been  properly  withheld."  But  that 
he  might  not  be  misunderstood  by  him  (S.  L.  Gouverneur), 
the  abolitionists  or  the  public,  he  desired  to  add:  "If  I 
were  situated  as  you  are,  I  would  do  as  you  have  done."    If 

«  Niles,  XLVIIT,  pp.  446,  447. 

'  Tho  correspondence  is  printed  in  Niles,  XL VIII,  pp.  417,  448, 

»  Ibid.,  XLIX,  pp.  8,  9. 


Kendall's  letter.  123 

postmasters  knew  that  it  was  the  object  of  the  contents  of  a 
newspaper,  or  of  anjotlier  publication,  to  promote  the  com- 
mission of  a  crime,  it  was  "their  duty  to  detain  them." 
"  As  a  measure  of  great  public  necessity,  therefore,  yon  and 
the  other  postmasters  who  have  assumed  the  responsibility 
of  stopping  these  inflammatory  papers,  will,  I  have  no  doubt, 
stand  justified  in  that  .step  before  your  country  and  all  man- 
kind." 

This  document  finds  its  complement  in  a  letter  of  Kendah 
to  the  postmaster  of  Charleston.  It  is  there  acknowledged 
that  the  authority  to  exclude  printed  matter  from  the  mails, 
on  account  of  its  contents,  would  give  the  postoffice  depart- 
ment "  a  power  over  the  press."  At  the  close  we  read :  "  By 
no  act  or  direction  of  mine,  official  or  private,  would  I  be 
induced  to  aid,  knowingly,  in  giving  circulation  to  papers  of 
this  description,  directly  or  indirectly.  We  owe  an  obliga- 
tion to  the  laws,  but  a  higher  one  to  the  communities  in 
which  we  live;  and  if  the  former  be  perverted  to  destroy  the 
latter,  it  is  patriotism  to  disregard  them."  * 

The  postmaster  general,  a  member  of  the  cabinet,  therefore, 
in  an  otiicial  document,  declares  it  to  be  the  patriotic  duty 
of  his  subordinates  grossly  to  violate,  not  only  the  statute 
law,  but  the  constitution;  for  he  lays  stress  on  the  fact  that 
the  mode  of  action  which  is  made  their  patriotic  duty  is  the 
exercise  of  "  a  power  over  the  press,"  which  the  constitution 
had  expressly  withheld  even  from  the  legislative  power.  If 
there  was  question  here  only  of  Kendall,  the  matter  would 
deserve  consideration  at  most  as  a  curiosity.  But  the  presi- 
dent was  back  of  the  postmaster,  general,  for  if  he  had  not 
shared  the  views  of  his  minister,  he  would  not  have  left  him 
one  hour  in  his  position  after  such  a  monstrosity.  Those 
letters  of  Kendall  were,  indeed,  conceived  and  written  in 
the   real  Jacksonian  spirit.     We  recall  Jackson's  saying: 

'  Niles,  XLVIII,  p.  448. 


124  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

"  Every  public  officer  who  takes  an  oath  to  support  the  con- 
stitution,  swears  to  support  it  as  he  understands  it,  and  not 
as  others  understand  it."     From  this  principle  to  the  other, 
that  every  public  officer  was  in  duty  bound  to  set  himself 
above  the  constitution  whenever  "  patriotism  "  required  it, 
there  was  but  one  step.     This  principle  and  that  of  Gov- 
ernor Gayle  cited  above,  that  certain  parts  of  the  constitu- 
tion were  to  be  strictly  construed  and  others  not,  give  us 
the  key  to  the  spirit  which  governed  the.  policy  of  the  dem- 
ocratic party  from  its  origin  to  very  recent  times.      Its 
stubborn  faith  in  the  letter  has  always  been  only  the  exter- 
nal appearance  with  which  it  —  for  the  most  part,  indeed,  in 
good  faith  —  deceived  itself.     From  its  nature,  it  always  be- 
longed to  the  a  priari  school.     Only  the  eminently  realistic 
character  wliich  circumstances  in  the  United  States  impress 
with  overpowering  force  on  the  life  of  individuals  and  of 
the  entire  people,  has  preserved  it  from  the  all-sided  and  un- 
bridled growth  of  doctrinarianism  to  which  its  original  French 
prototypes  succumbed.     The  principal  difference  between 
that  party  and  the  purer  school  of  Rousseau,  is  that  the 
latter  ascends  logically  from  the  individual  to  the  "  general 
will,"  while  the  former,  for  the  most  part,  has  lost  sight  of 
the  speculative  basis  of  the  theory,  and  takes  the  moods  of 
the  masses  for  its  starting  point.     Whatever  is  in  harmony 
with  these  is  con-ect  and  right.     But  the  moods  of  the 
masses  find   their  official  expression  in  the  commands  of 
party.     Within  these  narrow  and  yet   infinitely  elastic  lim- 
its, the  sovereign  individual  will  has  full  force.    The  criterion 
to  ascertain  whether  it  has  broken  through  them,  is  again 
furnished  by  the  moods  of  the  masses.     And  finally,  absolu- 
tion, not  only  before  the  world  but  also  of  oneself,  for  the 
sin  of,  at  the  same  time  disregarding  positive  law,  which  is 
sometimes  unavoidable,  is  found  in  the  good  intention  which 
comes  clothed  in  the  drapery  of  true  and  enlightened  patri- 


ABOLITIONISTS   AND   THE  MAILS.  125 

otism.     This  explains  tlie  charm  which  the  democratic  party 
has  always  exercised  over  the  lower  strata  of  the  masses. 

Kendall's  letter  to  postmaster  Gouverneur,  however,  threw 
light  on  the  question  from  another  side.  Immediately  after 
the  emphatic  declaration,  that  no  legal  right  existed  to  ex- 
clnde  the  abolitionist  publications  from  the  mails,  follows  the 
equally  emphatic  expression  of  the  doubt,  whether  the  aboli- 
tionists had  a  legal  right  to  require  that  their  publications 
sliould  be  transmitted  to  the  slave  states  through  the  mails. 
This  question  is  apparently  answered  by  the  first  declaration. 
Such,  however,  is  not  the  case.  Heretical  as  the  opinion 
may  seem  even  to-day  to  most  Americans,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  Kendall's  argument  on  this  point  was  to  the  pur- 
pose. 

The  postmaster  general  starts  out  with  the  incontestable 
principle,  that  so  far  as  the  federal  constitution  entered  into 
the  question,  the  several  states  had  the  right  to  prohibit  the 
dissemination  within  their  limits  of  publications  which  ap- 
peared dangerous  to  them.  Every  one  of  the  slave  states 
had  made  such  a  prohibition  in  relation  to  all  publications 
which  bore  a  character  inimical  to  slavery.  "Now  have 
these  people,"  Kendall  asks,  "  a  legal  right  to  do  by  the  mail 
carriers  and  postmasters  of  the  United  States  acts  which,  if 
done  by  themselves  or  their  agents,  would  lawfully  subject 
them  to  the  punishment  due  to  felons  of  the  deepest  dye? 
Are  the  ofiicers  of  the  United  States  compelled  by  the  con- 
stitution and  laws  to  become  the  instruments  and  accom- 
plices of  those  who  design  to  baffle  and  make  nugatory  the 
constitutional  laws  of  the  states?  ...  It  might  be  plaus- 
ibly alleged  that  no  law  of  the  United  States  can  protect 
from  punishment  any  man,  whether  a  public  officer  or  citi- 
zen, in  the  commission  of  an  act  which  the  state,  acting 
within  the  undoubted  sphere  of  her  reserved  rights,  has  de- 
clared to  be  a  crime."    That  from  this,  the  authority  of  the 


126  Jackson's  administeation  — annexation  of  texas. 

general  government,  to  say  nothing  of  the  several  federal 
officers,  to  violate  the  freedom  of  the  press  guaranteed  by 
the  constitution  cannot  be  inferred,  is  as  self-evident  as  that 
the  exclusion  of  whole  classes  of  publications  from  the  mails, 
because  of  the  opinions  expressed  in  them  on  certain  insti- 
tutions and  on  the  condition  of  things  in  certain  parts  of  the 
country,  would  have  been  a  gross  violation  of  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  But  this  does  not  do  away  with  those  objec- 
tions of  Kendall.  Neither  in  congress  nor  elsewhere  have 
they  been  validly  refuted.  That,  contrary  to  tlie  persistent 
assertions  of  the  south,  the  abolitionists  did  not  send  their 
publications  to  slaves,  and  that  the  desire  to  incite  an  insur- 
rection of  slaves  was  as  far  from  them  as  from  the  slave- 
holders themselves,  changes  the  case  in  nothing.*     The  state 

'The  Anti-Slavery  Society  of  Massachusetts  issued  an  address  "to  the 
public  "  on  the  17th  of  August,  in  which  we  read:  "  It  is  intimated  that 
we  are  guilty  of  circulating  incendiary  publications  among  the  southern 
slaves.  We  utterly  and  indignantly  deny  this  calumny,  and  we  call  for 
the  proof.  We  have  no  design  and  no  means  to  address  the  slaves.  Noth- 
ing can  be  further  from  our  wishes  than  to  excite  the  slave  population. 
We  should  consider  any  action  of  this  kind  as  far  worse  than  useless  — as 
highly  dangerous,  and  as  little  less  criminal  than  murder.  Why  should 
we  seek  to  promote  insurrection?  What  should  we  not  lose  by  it?  As 
merchants  and  mechanics,  as  citizens  and  parents,  as  patriots  and  Chris- 
tians, we  have  as  much  to  risk  as  others  in  this  community;  and  we  know 
that  such  an  event  would  be  the  greatest  calamity  to  the  slaves,  and  to  the 
cause  of  freedom.  No  anti-slavery  society,  and  no  person  connected  with 
any  anti-slavery  society,  is  believed  to  have  ever  circulated  among  the 
slaves  any  circulation  whatever,  as  is  so  often  hinted,  but  never  yet,  we 
beUeve,  distinctly  charged,  by  the  opposers  of  our  cause.  We  solemnly 
pledge  ourselves,  that  if  it  can  be  shown  that  any  person  connected  with 
our  cause  has  ever  circulated  inflammatory  tracts  among  the  slaves,  or  with 
a  view  to  be  read  by  them,  we  will  publicly  renounce  him  as  a  foe  to  the 
peace  of  society,  and  to  the  best  interests  of  the  oppressed. 

"  We  refer  our  fellow  citizens  to  any  and  all  of  our  publications,  peremp- 
toiily  denying  that  there  can  be  found  in  them  a  sentence  from  whicn 
could  be  inferred  other  counsel  to  the  slaves  than  this,  '  to  suffer  injury  and 
still  be  kind '  — '  not  to  avenge  themselves,  but  give  place  unto  wrath.' 


FEEEDOM  OF  THE  PEE88.  127 

laws  wliich  interdicted  their  publications,  and  branded  the 
dissemination  of  them  as  a  great  crime,  were  not  in  conflict 
with  the  federal  constitution.  The  general  government 
which,  on  the  one  hand,  was  compelled  by  the  constitution 
to  transmit  the  abolitionist  publications  through  the  mails 
like  all  other  publications,  was,  on  the  other  hand,  guilty  of 
a  violation  of  the  constitutional  criminal  laws  of  those  states 
by  so  transmitting  them.  Here,  again,  it  was  true  that 
slavery  and  the  freedom  of  the  press  could  not  exist  side  by 
side.  But  the  conflict  here  went  deeper.  If — as  the  con- 
stitution provided — the  postoifice  was  to  be  a  matter  of 
national  concern,  and  to  lie  within  the  exclusive  domain  of 
the  general  government,  the  guaranteeing  of  the  freedom  of 
the  press  in  respect  to  the  general  government  could  not  be 
harmonized  with  the  total  absence  of  protection  of  the  press 
in  respect  to  the  several  states,  so  far  as  the  federal  consti- 
tution was  concerned.  If,  in  this  conflict,  freedom  won  the 
victory,  and  it  is  not  to  be  feared,  after  the  abolition  of  slav- 
ery, that  any  conflict  on  this  question  will  ever  arise  again, 
it  is  due  to  a  mere  matter  of  fact  that  this  final  decision  has 
been  reached.  The  freedom  of  the  press  has  become  part  of 
the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  American  people  to  such  an  ex- 
tent, and  is  so  conditioned  by  the  democratic  character  of 
their  political  and  social  life,  that  a  successful  attack  on  it, 
no  matter  what  legal  authority  it  might  have  on  its  side,  is 
impossible.  Even  the  gigantic  power  of  the  slavocracy  gave 
the  battle  up  as  hopeless  after  the  first  onslaught. 
The  president's  message  of  the  2d  of  December,  1835, 

"  We  have  never  advocated  the  right  of  physical  resistance  on  the  part 
of  the  oppressed.  We  assure  our  assailants,  that  we  would  not  sacrifice 
the  life  of  a  singfle  slaveholdei  to  emancipate  every  slave  in  the  United 
States."  Niles,  XLVIII,  p.  457.  See  also  the  letter  of  the  New  York 
Anti-Slavery  Society  of  the  26th  of  December,  1835,  to  President  Jackson. 
Jay,  Misc.  Writ.,  pp.  364-369. 


128  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

brought  the  question  in  an  ofiScial  manner  before  congress.^ 
Jackson,  after  his  own  fashion,  took  the  tiling  easily.  The 
"representative  of  the  American  p'eople"  does  not  need  to 
examine  either  the  state  of  the  fact  or  the  constitutional  law. 
The  agitation  of  the  wicked  abolitionists  was,  indeed,  a 
frightful  poison,  but  out  of  the  constitutional  magic  kitchen 
of  the  infallible  one  came  the  antidote  ready  to  be  adminis- 
tered. Attempts  had  been  made  to  disseminate  "  inflamma- 
tory appeals  addressed  to  the  passions  of  the  slaves  "  through 
the  mails.  That  was  not  only  "unconstitutional,"  "but  re- 
pugnant to  the  principles  of  our  national  compact  and  to  the 
dictates  of  humanity  and  religion."  If  the  "  expression  of 
the  public  will "  should  not  suffice  to  put  an  end  to  these 
atrocities,  "  not  a  doubt "  could  be  entertained  that  the  free 
states  would  employ  all  other  suitable  means  to  prevent  the 
slightest  interference  with  the  "  constitutional  rights  of  the 
south."  But  it  was,  above  aU  things,  the  duty  of  the  gen- 
eral government  to  preserve  "  inviolate  the  relations  created 
among  the  states  by  the  constitution."  Hence,  the  president 
proposed  that  a  law  should  be  passed  prohibiting,  "  under 
severe  penalties,  the  circulation  in  the  southern  states,  through 
the  mail,  of  incendiary  publications  intended  to  instigate 
slaves  to  insurrection." 

On  Calhoun's  motion,  the  senate  referred  this  part  of  the 
message  to  a  special  committee  of  five  members,''  four  of 
whom  were  chosen  from  the  south.  Spite  of  this,  the  report 
which  accompanied  the  bill  introduced  on  the  4th  of  Febru- 
ary, 1836,  had  a  very  small  claim  to  be  called  the  report  of 
a  committee.  Not  only  Davis,  of  Massachusetts,  but  King, 
of  Georgia,  and  Linn,  of  Missouri,  declared  that  they  could 
agree  to  only  a  part  of  it.^  Only  the  minority — Calhoun  and 

•  Statesm.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1018,  1019. 

» Dec.  21,  1835.    Deb.  of  C!ongr.,  XII,  p.  704. 

•Thirty  Yeajs'  View,  I,  p.  531. 


INCENDIAKT   PUBWCATIONff.  129 

Mangum,  of  North  Carolina  —  unreservedly  acquiesced  in 
it.  Strictly  speaking,  there  was  no  report  whatever,  for,  in 
the  United  States  —  contrary,  indeed,  to  the  usual  mode  of 
speech  —  it  has,  to  say  the  least,  always  been  a  question  of 
debate,  whether  the  minority  of  a  committee  could  make  a 
report. 

Moreover,  the  bill  was  so  far  from  having  the  undivided 
acquiescence  of  the  senators  of  the  southern  states  that  its 
rejection  was  from  the  first  considered  certain.  Its  oppo- 
nents were  controlled  partly  by  constitutional  considerations 
and  partly  by  doubt  as  to  its  expediency.  The  latter  should 
have  been  reasonably  sufficient  for  all.  The  import  of  the 
bill  was,  that  no  postmaster  should  "knowingly"  transmit 
any  "  paper  " '  which  treated  of  slavery  in  a  way  in  conflict 
with  the  laws  of  the  state  in  question,  to  the  slave  states,  or 
deliver  any  such  paper  to  the  person  in  the  slave  states  it  was 
addressed  to.  Any  person  disobeying  its  provisions  was  to  be 
punished  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  If,  as  Calhoim  asserted 
in  answer  to  an  objection  by  Webster,  the  word  "  know- 
ingly "  was  honestly  intended,  the  law  could  not  but  remain  a 
nonentity;  for  how  often  could  it  be  shown  that  the  post- 
master knew  the  contents  of  the  prohibited  publication.  If 
the  intended  effect  were  to  be  attained,  postmasters  would  have 
had  to  inform  themselves  of  the  contents  of  the  mails.  Thus 
every  postmaster  would  have  to  constitute  himself  a  cabinet 
noir,  and  his  instructions  to  be  the  law  of  the  state  in  which 
his  postoffice  lay.  This  would  have  led  to  strange  things. 
The  "crime"  for  which  Williams,  of  New  York,  was  to  be 
surrendered  to  Alabama,  consisted  in  the  following  sentences 
of  the  ^Emancipator:  "God  commands,  and  all  nature  cries 
out,  that  man  should  not  be  held  as  property.  The  system 
of  making  men  property  has  plunged  two  million  two  hun- 

'  The  bill,  after  enumerating  specially,  newspapers,  pamphlets,  pictures, 
etc.,  adds  "  or  any  other  paper."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  754. 


130  Jackson's  admlnisteation  — annexation  of  texas. 

dred  and  fifty  thousand  of  our  fellow  countrymen  into  the 
deepest  physical  and  moral  degradation,  and  they  are  every 
moment  sinking  deeper."  This  certainly  was  no  worse  than 
the  "  self-evident "  truth  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
that  all  men  are  born /free  and j equal.  It  might,  however, 
have  very  easily  happened  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence or  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts,  which  had 
adopted  that  principle,  should  have  been  treated  as  "incen- 
diary publications,  intended  to  instigate  the  slaves  to  insur- 
rection." A  few  years  later,  one  Chauncey  B.  Black,  an  agent 
of  the  Bible  Society  in  New  Orleans,  was  cited  before  the 
court  because  he  had  asked  some  slaves  whether  they  would 
like  to  have  a  Bible.  Only  on  the  assurance  of  the  Bible 
Society  that  he  had  acted  in  opposition  to  their  views,  and 
on  proof  that  he  had  not  understood  his  instructions,  was  he 
discharged  after  receiving  a  warning  to  do  so  no  more.' 
Timorous  or  very  zealous  postmasters  might,  therefore,  very 
easily  haVc  placed  the  Bible,  as  a  fire-brand,  on  the  index. 
A  great  part  of  the  speeches  delivered  in  congress  should, 
plainly  enough,  never  have  passed  the  limits  of  a  slave 
state.  The  press  of  the  southern  states  preached  every  day 
the  murder  and  manslaughter  of  the  abolitionists.  What 
monstrosities  might  not  postmasters,  in  the  carrying  out  of 
such  a  law,  have  committed  unpunished,  provided  only  they 
protected  themselves  with  the  plea  of  their  zeal  for  the  slavery 
interest?  Even  now  a  southern  postmaster  dared  to  write 
to  an  acquaintance  in  Boston:  "  Yesterday,  while  examining 
the  mail  in  search  of  'incendiaries,'  I  discovered  a  letter 
vmtten  on  a  beautiful  sheet  of  pink  paper.  I  broke  it  open 
and,  lo  and  behold,  it  was  a  love  letter  from  our  old  friend 
Miss to  young ,  of  this  village.     It  would  make 


• "  New  Orleans  Picayiine,"  August  16,  1841,  cited  in  Jay,  Letter  tc 
Bishop  Ives.   Misc.  Writ.,  p.  475. 


FATE  OF   CALHOITN's  BILL.  131 

you  langh  to  read  it."^  "  Shade  of  TVashington!"  exclaimed 
the  Boston  Atlas^  "where  are  our  liberties?" 

Calhoun's  bill  was,  indeed,  rejected,  but  it  received  nineteen 
against  twenty-five  votes.^  Of  the  nineteen,  who  voted  aye, 
there  were  four  from  the  free  states.'  It  was  time  to  conjure 
up  the  shade  of  Washington  when  such  a  bill  could  receive 
the  vote  of  nearly  four-ninths  of  the  senators.  But  one  of  the 
signs  of  the  times,  much  more  significant  than  the  bill  itself, 
was  the  constitutional  vindication  of  it  by  its  originator. 

A  law  such  as  the  president  had  proposed,  Calhoun  de- 
clared to  be  indubitably  unconstitutional,  as  it  would  obvi- 
ously violate  the  freedom  of  the  press.*  Such  a  law  would 
give  the  government  greater  power  over  the  press  than  it 
had  formerly  assumed  in  the  repudiated  sedition  laws,' 
which  were  universally  held  to  be  unconstitutional.  More- 
over, such  a  law  would  not  avert  the  danger  which  threatened 
the  southern  states,  but  rather  increase  it.  If  it  was  for  con- 
gress to  decide  what  publications  were  incendiary,  it  would 
have  had  to  decide,  also,  what  publications  were  not  incen- 
diary; but  if  this  were  so,  slavery  was  delivered  over  to  the 
mercy  of  congress.'  Fortunately  such  a  right  did  not  belong 
to  congress.     The  care  for  their  internal  peace  and  security 

'  Niles,  XLVIII,  p.  451. 
•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  771. 

'Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  Robinson  of  Ulinois,  Tallmadge  and  S. 
Wright  of  New  York. 
♦Calhoun's  Works,  V,  pp.  191,  192. 

•  Calhoun's  Works,  II,  p.  514. 

*  "  Nothing  is  more  clear  than  that  the  admission  of  the  right,  on  the 
part  of  congress,  to  determine  what  papers  are  incendiary,  and,  as  such, 
to  prohibit  their  circulation  through  the  mail,  necessarily  involves  the  right 
to  determine  what  are  not  incendiary,  and  to  enforce  their  circulation.  Nor 
is  it  less  certain  that,  to  adm't  such  a  right,  would  be  virtually  to  clothe 
congress  with  the  power  to  abolish  slavery,  by  giving  it  the  means  of 
breaking  down  all  the  barriers  which  the  slaveholding  states  have  erected 
for  the  protection  of  their  lives  and  property."    Ibid.,  V,  pp.  196,  197. 


132  Jackson's  administration —  annexation  of  texas, 

devolved  on  the  states,  and  thej  alone  had  to  decide  what 
miglit  endanger  that  peace  and  security.^  The  general  gov- 
ernment had  only  to  respect  the  measures  taken  by  the  states 
to  insure  their  internal  peace  and  security,  to  support  the 
carrying  out  of  the  same,  so  far  as  the  powers  delegated  to 
it  in  the  constitution  permitted,  and  to  the  extent  that  it 
became  necessary  to  modify  its  laws  in  that  behalf.^  The 
essential  difference  between  a  law  such  as  the  president's 
message  proposed  and  the  bill  introduced  by  the  committee, 
consisted  in  this:  that  in  the  former  case  congress  would 
exclude  certain  products  of  the  press  from  the  mails  as 
dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  slave  states;  in  the  latter,  it 
would  not  presume  to  take  that  unconstitutional  initiative, 
but,  in  accordance  with  its  constitutional  duty,  command 
certain  federal  officers,  under  pain  of  punishment,  to  govern 
themselves  in  their  official  action  entirely  by  the  proper  state 
laws. 

'  "  The  internal  peace  and  security  of  the  states  are  under  the  protection 
of  the  states  themselves,  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  all  authority  and  con- 
trol on  the  part  of  congress.  It  belongs  to  them,  and  not  to  congress,  to 
determine  what  is,  or  is  not,  calculated  to  disturb  their  peace  and  secu- 
rity."   l.c. 

•  "  If  the  right  to  protect  her  internal  peace  and  security  belongs  to  a 
state,  the  general  government  is  bound  to  respect  the  measures  adopted  by 
her  for  that  purpose,  and  to  cooperate  in  their  execution,  as  far  as  its  del- 
egated powers  may  admit,  or  the  measure  may  require.  Thus,  in  the 
present  case,  the  slaveholding  states  having  the  unquestionable  right  to 
pass  all  such  laws  as  may  be  necessary  to  maintain  the  existing  relation  be- 
tween master  and  slave  in  those  states;  their  right,  of  course,  to  prohibit 
the  circulation  of  any  publication  or  any  intercourse  calculated  to  disturb 
or  destroy  that  relation,  is  incontrovertible.  In  the  execution  of  the  meas- 
ures which  may  be  adopted  by  the  states  for  this  purpose,  the  powers  of 
congress  over  the  mail,  and  of  regulating  commerce  with  foreign  nations 
and  between  the  states,  may  require  cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  general 
govemmentj  and  it  is  bound,  in  conformity  with  the  principle  established, 
to  respect  the  laws  of  the  state  in  their  exercise,  and  so  to  modify  its  acts 
as  not  only  not  to  violate  those  of  the  states,  but,  as  far  as  practicable,  to 
cooperate  in  their  execution."    Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  199. 


clay's  objections.  133 

Clay  inquired  where  congress  had  obtained  power  to  pass 
a  law  to  put  the  laws  of  the  states  into  execution.  Congress 
had  only  the  powers  which  were  granted  it  by  the  constitu- 
tion ;  but  the  bestowal  of  such  a  right  he  was  not  able  to 
discover  in  it.^  Davis  of  Massachusetts  expressed  the  same 
truth  still  more  pointedly.  "  If,"  he  said,  "  congress,  by  its 
acts,  so  far  adopts  the  law  of  a  state  as  to  make  it  a  rule 
of  conduct  for  public  offic-ers,  requiring  them,  under  penal- 
ties, to  obey  it,  is  not  such  a  law  in  fact  a  law  of  congress 
by  adoption?  Is  it  not  in  truth  a  part  of  our  legislation  in 
the  regulation  of  the  postoffice  as  much  as  if  it  had  ema- 
nated directly  from  congress?"  The  law  proposed  by  the 
president  and  the  law  introduced  by  the  committee  were  the 
same,  not  only  as  to  their  end,  but  also  as  to  their  means. 
If,  as  Calhoun  claimed,  the  law  proposed  by  Jackson  was  un- 
constitutional, the  law  demanded  by  himself  could  not  be 
constitutional.^ 

This  argument  is  irrefutable  unless  the  constitutional  law 
of  the  Union  is  to  be  debased  to  a  play  upon  words,  in  order 
to  make  it  possible,  by  long-winded  reasoning,  to  establish 
any  desired  sophism,  and  therefore  to  set  up  any  desired 
claim.  Without  prejudice  to  tliis,  however,  it  was  of  the 
greatest  significance  that  Calhoun,  even  if  he  arrived  at  the 
same  goal  as  Jackson,  had  chosen  a  starting  point  diametric- 
ally opposite  to  his.  It  is  this,  his  fundamental  principle, 
which  makes  the  debates  on  the  "  incendiary  publications  " 
a  new  boundary  mark  in  the  development  of  the  states-rights 
theory.  Calhoun  went  with  it  a  great  distance  beyond  the 
position  which  he  had  assumed  on  the  tariff  question.  Then 
the  premise  of  this  main  point  was  that  the  state  and  Federal 
governments,  or  the  states  and  the  Union,  were,  according  to 
Jefferson's  expression,  "  coordinate  departments  of  a  simple 

'  Thirty  Tears'  View,  I,  p.  587.       •  Deb.  of  Ctongr.,  XII,  p.  753. 


134  Jackson's  administbation — annexation  of  texas. 

and  undivided  whole."  ^  Finally  he  had,  with  the  Kentucky 
resolutions  of  November  10,  1798,  inferred  that,  as  in  all 
cases  of  a  treaty  between  powers  who  have  no  common  judge, 
each  party  has  a  right  to  decide  for  himself  in  what  concerns 
violations  of  the  treaty,  as  well  as  the  manner  and  the  measure 
of  the  remedy.  And  finally,  with  the  Kentucky  resolutions  of 
the  14th  of  ^N^ovember,  1799,  he  had  found  the  right  means 
of  redress  in  "  nullification."  Only  in  the  second  place,  and 
in  evident  contradiction  with  the  "  party  "  relation  which  he 
had  alleged  before,  was  the  former  made  to  assume  the  position 
of  an  "agent"  of  the  latter.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  the 
government  of  the  Union  seems  debased  to  the  playing  of 
this  part  whenever  it  pleased  the  states  to  so  debase  it  for  the 
purpose  of  enforcing  their  (the  states')  reserved  "  rights." 
Not  a  word  about  the  "  equal  right "  to  examine  and  to  judge ; 
the  general  government  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  receive  and 
execute  the  orders  of  the  states.  There  were  at  the  time 
twenty-four  states,  and  their  number  was  continually  in- 
creasing. No  matter  how  contradictory  the  laws  of  all  these 
"sovereignties"  might  be,  nor  how  outrageous  they  perhaps 
were,  in  part,  the  general  government  was  not  to  reason 
about  them,  but  execute  them  all  with  equal  fidelity.  But 
let  us  confine  ourselves  to  the  case  in  hand.  If  Calhoun's 
general  principles  were  right,  the  states  were  certainly  en- 
titled to  ask  that  postmasters  should,  before  delivering  the 
mails,  inform  themselves  minutely  as  to  their  contents.  As 
a  consequence,  it  might  be  a  thing  of  a  daily  occurrence,  that 
the  Federal  government  should  be  compelled  to  disgrace  a 
postmaster  in  Massachusetts  by  dismissal,  if  he  did  that 
which  a  postmaster  in  Alabama  refused  to  do,  and  for  fail- 
ing to  do  which  the  latter  might  be  equally  disgraced  and 
injured  by  dismissal.  But  this  was  not  enough.  Calhoun 
readily  granted  that  the  laws  of  the  states,  in  the  execution 

'See  Vol.  I,  p.  469. 

i 


Calhoun's  ATTmjDK.  185 

of  which  the  Federal  government  could  be  constitutionally 
made  to  cooperate,  might  be  in  conflict  with  laws  of  the 
Union  which  lay  entirely  within  the  sphere  of  action  of  the 
general  government.  The  question,  whether,  in  such  a  case, 
the  state  law  should  yield  to  the  federal  law,  or  the  federal 
law  to  the  state  law,  had  to  be  decided  in  accordance  with 
the  simple  principle  recognized  the  world  over,  that  that 
which  is  only  expedient  should  be  postponed  to  that  which 
is  necessary.  Here  not  only  reason,  but  the  constitution 
itself,  demanded  that  the  decision  should  be  in  favor  of  the 
states,*  for  postoffice  regulations  which  endangered  the 
safety  of  the  states,  could  not,  evidently,  be  looked  upon  as 
suitable  or  proper  laws;  and  congress  was  authorized  to  pass 
no  other.  With  whom  the  solution  of  the  problem  rested, 
on  which  side  the  higher  interest  was  at  stake,  is  a  ques- 
tion which  Calhoun  avoided  raising.  But  his  answer  to  it 
is  given  with  undoubted  certainty  from  his  whole  attitude. 
The  final  conclusion  from  his  principle  was,  therefore,  that 
the  government  of  the  Union  was  subordinate  to  the  states 

'"The  low  mast  yield  to  the  high;  the  convenient  to  the  necessary; 
mere  accommodation  to  safety  and  security.  This  is  the  universal  princi- 
ple which  governs  in  all  analogous  cases,  both  in  our  social  and  political 
relations.  Wherever  the  means  of  enjoying  or  securing  rights  come  into 
conflict  (rights  themselves  never  can),  this  universal  and  fundamental  prin- 
ciple is  the  one  which,  by  the  consent  of  mankind,  governs  in  all  such  cases. 
Apply  it  to  the  case  under  consideration,  and  need  I  ask  which  ought  to. 
yield?  Will  any  rational  being  say  that  the  laws  of  eleven  states  of  the 
Union,  which  are  necessary  to  their  peace,  security  and  very  existence, 
ought  to  yield  to  the  laws  of  the  general  government  regulating  the  post- 
office,  which  at  the  best  is  a  mere  accommodation  and  convenience  —  and 
this  when  the  government  was  formed  by  the  states  mainly  with  a  view  to 
secure  more  perfectly  their  peace  and  safety  ?  But  one  answer  can  be  given. 
All  must  feel  that  it  would  be  improper  for  the  laws  of  the  states,  in  such 
case,  to  yield  to  those  of  the  general  government,  and,  of  course,  that  the 
latter  ought  to  yield  to  the  former.  When  1  say  ought,  I  do  not  mean  on 
the  principle  of  concession.  I  take  higher  grounds;  I  mean  under  the  ob- 
ligation of  the  constitution  itself."    Calh.'s  Works,  II,  p.  527. 


136  Jackson's  ai>mini8te4.tion  —  annexation  of  texas. 

in  everything  in  which  it  might  occur  to  the  latter  to  claim 
any  superiority  It  must  be  conceded  that  he  was  not 
very  clear  in  his  own  mind  on  this  matter.  It  could  cer- 
tainly not  be  a  matter  of  no  consequence  to  him  to  see  thus 
clearly  in  what  glaring  contradiction  his  doctrine  stood  with 
the  actual  condition  of  things  and  their  development  since 
the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  Hence,  he  did  not  carry 
his  general  argument  any  farther  than  was  indispensably 
necessary  to  the  defense  of  the  practical  interest  which  he 
represented.  To  any  one  who,  with  Benton,  sees  in  Calhoun 
the  demagogue,  devouring  himself  with  suppressed  rage  be- 
cause his  wild  ambition  remained  unsatisfied,  systematically 
and  consciously  laboring  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union, 
not  only  this  remarkable  man  himself,  but  the  whole  "irre- 
pressible conflict,"  with  its  all-embracing  and  all-permeating 
entanglement  of  irreconcilable  contraries,  remains  a  closed 
book  with  seven  seals.  Calhoun  clung  tculy  and  warmly  to 
the  Union.  And  even  now  nothing  was  farther  from  him 
than  the  desire  to  weaken  it,  to  say  nothing  of  shaking  its 
very  foundations.  He  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  bless- 
ings which  not  only  the  people  in  the  aggregate,  but  all  the 
separate  states  as  such,  owed  to  the  firm  and  powerful  Union. 
He  would  have  cheerfully,  and  with  all  the  power  of  convic- 
tion, defended  it,  provided  only  slavery  was  made  secure. 
Beyond  this  he  did  not  go  one  inch;  but  he  went  as  far  as 
this,  with  a  fanatical  regardlessness  of  consequences.  But 
it  was  the  curse  of  his  life  that,  through  every  stage  of  the 
stniggle,  and  even  to  his  death,  he  can  claim  the  sad  repu- 
tation of  having  perceived  infinitely  more  clearly  than  any 
one  else  to  what  distance  this  "  thus  far  "would  necessarily  go. 
Benton  called  the  alleged  danger  to  slavery  a  false  fear, 
and  from  many  a  southern  mouth  Calhoun  was  compelled 
to  hear  himself  severely  censured  because  he  imprudently 
and  in  the  heat  of  passion  had  announced  to  the  north  that 


CALHOUN  OBT  SLA.VEEY.  137 

the  south  would  not  be  satisfied  until  it  was  unreservedly 
made  the  constitutional  duty  of  the  general  government  to 
play  the  part  of  bailiff  to  the  slaveholding  interest.  How 
much  more  pointed  and  bitter  would  not  these  denunciations 
have  been,  if  it  had  been  known  that  Calhoun's  wonderful 
instinctive  understanding  of  the  essential  nature  of  slavery 
had  forced  him  already  far  beyond  this  "  extreme "  stand- 
point. Both  in  the  report  and  in  his  speech  of  the  12th  of 
April,  1836,  we  find  a  remarkable  tone,  which  was  entirely 
foreign  to  him  in  the  nullification  controversy.  To  all  ap- 
pearances, the  interpretation  of  the  constitution  continues  to 
make  up  the  burthen  of  his  argument;  but,  in  reality,  he 
begins  to  transfer  his  footing  from  the  unsafe  ground  of  the 
more  than  ambiguous  letter  to  the  sure  basis  of  facts.  He 
cannot  and  will  not  drop  the  constitution,  for  it  is  the  polit- 
ical gospel  on  which  all  have  sworn  in  good  faith,  and  he 
knows  how  to  find  in  it  whatever  he  needs.  But  the  strong, 
hard-twisted  thread  which  gives  form  and  support  to  the 
wonderful  filigrane  work  of  his  constitutional  deductions  is 
the  clear  sober  thought:  such  are  the  facts,  and  the  ques- 
tion will  be,  must  be  decided  in  accordance  with  the  facts. 

With  extreme  emphasis  his  weighty  voice  also  declares 
that  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  future  is  forever  impossible. 
He  here  bases  himself  on  the  broad  ground  of  the  diversity 
of  race  between  masters  and  slaves.  This  diversity  of  race 
excludes  their  political  and  social  equality;  and  without  this 
equality,  at  most,  the  form  of  slavery  would  be  changed.' 

'  "To  destroy  the  existing  relations  would  be  to  destroy  this  prosperity 
[of  the  southern  states],  and  to  place  the  two  races  in  a  state  of  conflict, 
which  must  end  in  the  expulsion  or  extirpation  of  one  or  the  other.  No 
other  can  be  substituted  compatible  with  their  peace  or  security.  The 
diCBculty  is  in  the  diversity  of  the  races.  So  strongly  drawn  is  the  line 
between  the  two  in  consequence,  and  so  strengthened  by  the  force  of  habit 
and  education,  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  exist  together  in  the  same 
community,  where  their  numbers  are  so  nearly  equal  as  in  the  slaveholding 


138    JAOKSON's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

Hence,  the  destruction  of  the  existing  relation  between  the 
two  races,  "  can  only  be  effected  by  convulsions  that  would 
devastate  the  country,  burst  asunder  the  bouds  of  the  Union, 
and  engulf  in  a  sea  of  blood  the  institutions  of  the  country. 
It  is  madness  to  suppose  that  the  slaveholding  states  would 
quietly  submit  to  be  sacrificed.  Every  consideration  —  in- 
terest, duty  and  humanity  —  the  love  of  country,  the  sense 
of  wrong,  hatred  of  oppressors  and  treacherous  and  faithless 
confederates — and  finally  despair,  would  impel  them  to  the 
most  daring  and  desperate  resistance  in  defence  of  property, 
famil}^  country,  liberty  and  existence."^  People  listened 
with  impatient  anger  or  with  sympathetic  smiles  to  these 
"  wild  exaggerations  of  a  fanatic."  Thirty  years  later  they 
were  prophecies,  every  letter  of  which  had  found  its  fright- 
ful fulfillment. 

The  fact  that  the  south  necessarily  saw  that  the  unaltered 
and  permanent  continuance  of  slavery  was  a  question  of  life  or 
death,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,''  was  in  Calhoun's  eyes 
the  decisive  element,  compared  with  which  all  else  was  empty 
sound.  "  I  must  tell  the  senate,  be  your  decision  what  it 
may,  the  south  will  never  abandon  the  principles  of  this  bill. 
If  you  refuse  cooperation  with  our  laws,  and  conflict  should 
ensue  between  yours  and  ours,  the  southern  states  will  never 

states,  under  any  other  relation  than  that  which  now  exists.  Social  and 
political  equality  between  them  is  impossible.  No  power  on  earth  can 
overcome  the  diflBculty.  The  causes  lie  too  deep  in  the  prmciples  of  our 
nature  to  be  surmounted.  But,  without  such  equality,  to  change  the 
present  condition  of  the  African  race,  were  it  possible,  would  be  but  to 
change  the  form  of  slavery."  Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  204,  205.  I  have 
never  hoai-d  the  republicans  appeal  to  this  authoritative  saying  of  Calhoun, 
in  the  later  contests  as  to  the  placing  of  the  emancipated  on  an  equal  civil 
and  pohtical  footing  with  white  citizens.    Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  205,  206. 

•Calh."s  Works,  V,  pp.  205,  206. 

•  In  a  speech  on  the  9th  of  March,  1836,  on  the  petitions  of  the  abolition- 
Lsts,  he  had  remarked:  "There  would  be  to  us  but  one  alternative  —  to 
triumph  or  perish  as  a  people."    Ibid.,  II,  p.  489. 


MICHIGAN   AND   AEKANSAS.  139 

yield  to  tlie  superiority  of  yours.  .  .  .  Let  it  be  fixed, 
let  it  be  riveted  in  every  southern  mind  tliat  the  laws  of  the 
slavel*«lding  states  for  the  protection  of  their  domestic  in- 
stitutions are  paramount  to  the  laws  of  the  general  govern- 
ment in  regulations  of  commerce  and  the  mail;  that  the  lat- 
ter must  yield  to  the  former  in  the  event  of  conflict,"  ^ 

Calhoun  obtained  no  direct  result.  The  attempt  indi- 
rectly to  limit  the  freedom  of  the  press  by  postoffice  regu- 
lations was  completely  frustrated.  In  the  same  year,  both 
houses  of  congress  passed  a  bill  prohibiting  postmasters,  under 
severe  penalty,  "  unlawfully  "  to  detain  in  their  offices  "  any 
letter,  package,  paiAjphlet  or  newspaper  with  intent  to  pre- 
vent the  arrival  and  delivery  of  the  same."  The  slaveholding 
interest  certainly  reaped  no  benefit  from  this  provision;  but 
undoubted  as  its  "  constitutional  rights  "  were  considered  by 
the  president  seven  months  befor©,-  he  approved  this  bill." 

As  an  offset  to  these  defeats,  the  south  had  two  victories 
during  the  same  year  to  record.  The  territory  of  Michigan 
had  a  long  time  importuned  congress  in  vain  to  authorize  it 
to  organize  as  a  state.'  $ii'.ed  of  long  waiting,  it  now  pro- 
ceeded to  do  so  on  its  own  account,  and  sought  admission 
into  the  Union.  As  the  same  request  was  made  by  Arkan- 
sas at  the  same  time,  one  of  the  weightiest  objections  against 
the  admission  of  Michigan  was  removed:  account  could 
now  bo  taken  of  the  "slight  jealousy" — as  Benton  more 

'  Ibid.,  II,  p.  533. 

«Law  of  July  2,  1^36,  sec.  32,  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  87. 

•Buchanan  reminded  the  senate:  "For  three  years  they  have  been 
rapping  at  your  door,  and  asking  for  the  consent  of  congress  to  form  a 
constitution,  and  for  admission  into  the  Union;  but  their  petitions  have 
not  been  headed,  and  have  been  treated  with  neglect.  Not  being  able  to 
be  admitted  in  the  way  they  sought,  they  have  been  forced  to  take  their 
own  course,  and  stand  upon  their  rights  — rights  secured  to  them  by  tlie 
constitution  and  a  solemn  irrepealable  ordinance "  (of  1787).  Thirty 
Years'  View,  I,  p.  629. 


140  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

than  ingenuously  expresses  himself — which  would  not  per- 
mit the  equilibrium  between  the  north  and  the  south  to  be 
disturbed.  The  action  of  Michigan  was  thoroughly  irregu- 
lar/ but  as  the  same  objection  had  to  be  raised  to  that  of 
Arkansas,  the  matter  was  quickly  and  easily  disposed  of  in 
the  senate.^  On  the  2d  of  April,  1836,  the  Michigan  bill 
was  passed  by  twenty-four  against  eighteen  votes,  and  the 
Arkansas  bill  by  thirty-one  against  six  votes  on  the  4th  of 
April.' 

Things  did  not  move  as  smoothly  in  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives. As  the  Michigan  bill  was  the  first  to  come  from 
the  senate,  according  to  the  usual  course  of  business  it  should 
have  been  the  first  to  be  discussed.  But  Wise,  of  Yirffinia, 
moved  to  give  the  Arkansas  bill  the  precedence.*    This  mo- 

'  These  irregularities  gave  occasion,  the  following  year,  to  a  long  and 
violent  constitutional  controversy  in  the  senate.  In  treating  of  the  strug- 
gle over  the  admission  of  California  into  the  Union,  notice  will  have  to  be 
taken  of  those  interesting  debates. 

*  Benton  noticed  this  opportunity  to  place  Calhoun's  demagogical  phan- 
tom in  the  clear  hght  of  his  understanding:  "  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that, 
on  the  presentation  of  these  two  great  questions  for  the  admission  of  two 
states,  the  people  of  those  states  were  so  slightly  affected  by  the  exertions 
that  had  been  made  to  disturb  and  ulcerate  the  public  mind  on  the  subject 
of  slavery,  as  to  put  them  in  the  hands  of  senators  who  might  be  supposed 
to  entertain  opinions  on  that  subject  different  from  those  held  by  the  states 
whose  interests  they  were  charged  with.  Thus,  the  people  of  Arkansas 
had  put  their  application  into  the  hands  of  a  gentleman  [Buchanan]  rep- 
resenting a  non-slaveholding  state;  and  the  people  of  Michigan  had  put 
their  appUcation  into  the  hand^of  a  senator  [Benton  himself]  coming  from 
a  state  where  the  institutions  of  slavery  existed;  affording  a  most  beauti- 
ful illustration  of  the  total  impotence  of  all  attempts  to  agitate  and  ulcer- 
ate the  public  mind  on  the  worn-out  subject  of  clavery.  He  would  fiurther 
take  occasion  to  say,  that  the  abolition  question  seemed  to  have  died  out." 
Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  629. 

*Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  752.  Among  the  six  senators  who  voted 
against  the  Arkansas  bill  were  Porter  of  Lousiana,  and  Henry  Clay.  Hence 
the  opposition  was,  in  part,  not  determined  by  the  slavery  question. 

*  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  29. 


wise's   MOTION".  141 

tion  provoked  a  lively  debate.  No  one  doubted  what  Wise's 
object  was.  Several  of  his  southern  colleagues,  however, 
were  of  opinion  that  this  object  might  be  attained  without 
departing  from  the  rules.  As  the  bills  had  to  pass  through 
different  stages,  they  might  begin  with  the  Michigan  bill, 
since  the  final  vote  could  be  prevented  until  "  some  un- 
equivocal guaranty  were  given  the  south  that  no  difficulty 
would  be  raised  as  to  the  reception  of  Arkansas  in  regard  to 
slavery."  ^  Others,  on  the  contrary,  insisted  that  Arkansas 
should  come  first,  because  the  south  had  to  be  secured  by  a 
pledge.'*  Lewis,  of  North  Carolina,  had  the  ingenuousness 
to  "  pledge  "  himself  that  the  south  would  "  offer  no  objections 
to  the  domestic  institutions  of  Michigan  in  regard  to  slav- 
ery." He  might,  in  his  simplicity,  believe  that  there  were 
many  who  would  accept  such  a  pledge  with  gratitude,  be- 
cause Wise  had  declared  that  the  south  would  carry  slavery 
into  the  heart  of  the  north,  if  the  latter  should  withdraw 
from  the  Missouri  compromise.  Caleb  Cushing,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, who  later  learned  only  too  well  how  to  allay  the 
apprehensions  of  the  slaveholders,  wasted  a  great  deal  of 
pathos  in  repelling  this  absurd  threat.  These  were,  on  both 
sides,  cheap  rhetorical  fiourishes,  since  the  wish  to  over- 
throw the  Missouri  compromise  did  not  even  remotely  enter 
the  minds  of  the  representatives  of  the  northern  states. 
John  Quincy  Adams  was  then  the  most  decided  opponent  of 
slavery  in  the  house,  and  he  expressly  declared  that,  in  his 
opinion,  not  only  the  compromise  of  1820,  but  also  the 
Louisiana  treaty,  forbade  all  opposition  to  the  admission  of 
Arkansas  as  a  slave  state.'    The  opposition,  so  far  as  it  was 

'  Bouldin  of  Vii^ia.    Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  632. 

»  "  We  of  the  south  want  a  hostage,  to  protect  us  on  a  delicate  question; 
and  the  effect  of  giving  precedence  to  the  Michigan  bill,  is  to  deprive  of  us 
of  that  hostage."    Lewis  of  North  Carolina,  1.  c. 

•  It  is  true  that  Adams  even  then,  as  he  now  remarked,  had  represented 


/ 
142  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

at  all  based  on  the  slavery  question,  confined  itself  entirely 
to  the  provision  of  the  constitution  proposed  by  Arkansas: 
"  The  general  assembly  shall  have  no  power  to  pass  laws  for  the 
emancipation  of  slaves  without  the  consent  of  the  owners." 
Adams  moved  an  amendment  to  the  bill  of  admission, 
which  recited  that  nothing  contained  in  that  bill  should  be 
construed  as  an  aicquiescence  by  congress  to  the  provisions 
of  the  Arkansas  constitution  in  relation  to  slavery.  This 
reservation,  however,  was  to  have  no  legal  force  whatever, 
nor  to  impose  any  restriction  on  the  state  in  regard  to  slav- 
ery. It  was  intended  only  to  guard  against  the  charge  that 
these  provisions  enjoyed  the  approval  of  congress.^  This 
was  certainly  not  asking  too  much,  and  yet  the  amendment 
received  only  thirty-two  votes,^  while  the  vote  on  the  bill  it- 
self stood  fifty  nays  against  one  hundred  and  forty-three 
ayes.  Here,  therefore,  it  was  plain  that  a  large  part  of  the 
opposition  was  determined  by  considerations  which  had  no 
connection  whatever  with  slavery.    A  single  glance  at  the 

the  view  that  congress  was  not  authorized  to  make  the  admission  of  Mis- 
souri, as  a  state,  dependent  on  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Deb.  of  Congr., 
XIII,  p.  33. 

'  "  I  propose  no  restriction  upon  her  .  .  .  but  I  am  unwilling  that 
congress,  in  accepting  her  constitution,  should  even  lie  under  the  imputa- 
tion of  assenting  to  an  article  in  the  constitution  of  a  state  which  with- 
holds from  its  legislature  the  jwwer  of  giving  freedom  to  the  slave. 
There  is  not  in  my  amendment  the  shadow  of  restriction  up- 
on the  state.  It  leaves  the  state,  like  all  the  rest,  to  regulate  the  subject 
of  slavery  within  herself  to  her  own  laws."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  33, 
85.  According  to  this,  Kapp  is  inaccurate  when  he  says:  "Adams  ob- 
jected in  the  house  that  congress  could  not  and  should  not  give  its  ap- 
proval to  a  constitution  which  took  fi-om  the  legislature  the  right  to 
set  the  slaves  free  sometime,  and  that  he  therefore  moved  the  rejection  of 
this  passage  in  the  constitution  of  Arkansas."  (Gesch.  der  Sklaverei, 
pp.  228,  229.)  In  my  opinion,  it  would  be  difficult  to  prove  tha-t  that  pro- 
vision was  entirely  "  unconstitutionaL"  Certain  it  is,  that  Adams  did  not 
80  consider  it. 

» Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  30. 


MISSOTJSI  ENLASGED.  143 

list  of  names  suffices  to  prove  this,  for  here  we  meet  with 
several  southern  extremists  in  company  with  Adams.  The 
slavery  question,  indeed,  was,  in  the  whole  debate,  a  very 
subordinate  element.  People  were  concerned  with  the  ques- 
tion of  incomparably  greater  weight  to  the  politicians: 
whether  Michigan  and  Arkansas  should  be  admitted  now 
or  only  after  the  presidential  election.  The  struggle  of  the 
opposition  was  hot  and  stubborn,  because  it  was  certain  that 
both  states  would  vote  for  the  regular  democratic  candidate. 

The  refusal  of  the  north  to  make  any  attempt  to  use  the 
Arkansas  question  as  an  attack  upon  the  Missouri  compro- 
mise, was  placed  in  a  clear  light  for  the  first  time  by  the 
fact  that  the  north  had  just  tendered  its  assistance  to  the 
south  most  grossly  to  violate  the  "eternal  stipulations"  of 
that  compromise,  in  the  interest  of  the  latter. 

The  northwestern  boundary  of  the  state  of  Missouri  was 
not  then,  as  it  is  to-day,  formed  by  the  river  of  that  name, 
but  it  proceeded  from  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas  along  the 
meridian  of  the  southwest  boundary,  and  then  turned  east- 
erly along  the  parallel  of  the  Des  Moines  river.^  Missouri 
was  very  desirous  to  obtain  the  tract  of  land  between  its 
northwestern  boundary  and  the  river.  This  territory  was, 
by  approximate  estimation,  about  as  large  as  Rhode  Island, 
exceedingly  fertile,  and  gave  the  state  control  over  an- 
other large  part  of  the  great  river  which  ran  through  it 
already  from  the  entrance  of  the  Kansas  to  its  union  with 
the  Mississippi.  It  must  have  seemed  scarcely  imaginable 
that  this  desire  would  ever  be  realized.  The  tract  of  country 
to  be  acquired  constituted  a  part  of  the  territory  ceded  to 
the  United  States  by  the  treaty  of  Prairie  du  Chien,  in  1830, 
on  condition  that  the  president  should  allot  it  to  the  ceding 
or  other  tribes  "  for  hunting  and  other  purposes."  *    The 

'  Stat,  at  L.,  Ill,  p.  545. 

•  Indian  Treaties,  Stat  at  L.,  VII,  pp.  328,  329. 


114  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Sacs  and  Foxes,  who  had  their  seat  there,  had,  therefore,  to 
be  frightened  awaj  again,  and  new  reservations  to  be  found 
for  them  in  order  to  help  one  of  the  larger  states  to  a  verj 
considerable  further  extension  of  its  territory,  at  the  expense 
of  the  Union.  But  this  was,  however,  the  least  difficulty. 
The  most  material  obstacle  lay  in  the  Missouri  compromise, 
for  the  entire  tract  was  situated  north  of  36°  30',  from  which 
the  solemn  compact  between  the  north  and  the  south  had 
excluded  slavery  forever.  But  it  is  self-evident  that  Mis- 
souri would  not  and  could  not  make  the  acquisition  on  this 
condition.  The  territory  secured  to  liberty  for  all  time  had, 
therefore,  to  be  transformed  into  slave  territory,  if  not  di- 
rectly, indirectly,  by  means  of  an  act  of  congress.^  Spite  of 
this,  Benton  and  Linn,  the  two  senators  from  Missouri,  set  sed- 
ulously to  work  and  accomplished  their  task  as  easily  as  if 
they  had  to  do  with  the  merest  bagatelle.  They  skilfully 
nsed  the  one  difficulty  to  pave  the  way  for  the  overcoming  of 
the  other.  The  bill  introduced  by  them  was  only  a  few  lines 
long,  and  wore  a  very  innocent  appearance.  "Wlien,"  it 
ran,  "  the  Indian  title  to  all  the  lands  between  the  state  of 
Missouri  and  the  Missouri  river  shall  be  extinguished,  the 
jurisdiction  over  said  lands  shall  be  hereby  ceded  to  the  state 
of  Missouri."  There  was  not  a  word  about  the  Missouri  com- 
promise and  slavery.  That  dust  could  not  be  thrown  in  the 
eyes  of  congress  in  this  manner  is  self-evident.  It  might, 
however,  be  hoped  that  the  masses  of  the  people  would 
think  no  more  about  what  lay  behind  this  harmless  boundary 
regulation.  And  congress  neglected  to  cause  the  alarm  to 
be  sounded  throughout  the  country.  The  matter  was  dis- 
posed of  quietly  and  quickly.     The  bill  was  approved  by 

*  The  south  had  claimed  frequently  enough  that  the  government  of  the 
Union  had  not  power  to  do  indirectly  what  it  was  not  authorized  to  do 
directly.  But  if  there  was  anything  certain  in  constitutional  law,  it  was 
that  the  government  of  the  Union  did  not  have  the  right  to  call  slavery 


THE    SACS   AND   FOXES.  145 

the  president  on  tlie  7th  of  June,  1836.*  The  requisite  con- 
tract with  the  Sacs  and  Foxes  was  closed  on  the  27th  of  Sep- 
tember, and  on  tlie  15th  of  February,  1837,  the  proclama- 
tion of  the  treaty  was  made.*  Tlie  legislative  coach  of  the 
United  States  moved  at  a  very  rapid  rate  when  the  slavery 
interest  held  the  whip. 

"  Slavery,"  Adams  had  said  in  the  debates  on  the  Arkan- 
sas question,  "takes  advantage  of  that  kind,  friendly  and 
compassionate  feeling  of  northern  freemen  for  their  brethren 
and  fellow  citizens  "  (awakened  by  the  abolitionist  question), 
to  deal  deadly  blows  at  freedom.'  Benton  confirms  with  his 
weighty  testimony  the  fact  that  this  feeling  of  the  north  ex- 
plains the  facility  with  which  the  extension  of  Missouri  was 
effected.  He  loudly  extols  the  "  generons  "  and  "  magnan- 
imous" assistance  which  he  received  from  the  northern 
members.*  And  he  had  good  reason  to  do  so.  They  con- 
stituted a  majority  in  the  house  of  representatives;  and  in 
the  senate,  where  a  two-thirds  majority  was  required  to  con- 
firm the  contract  with  the  Sacs  and  Foxes,  they  were  one- 
half.  But  was  the  freedom  from  all  suspicion  of  sympathy 
for  the  abolitionists  purchased  too  dearly  by  this  act  of  com- 
placency? We  have  seen  in  the  debate  on  the  Arkansas  bill 
and  the  Michigan  bill,  how  little  disposed  the  south  was  to 
pay  this  hoped  for  price  for  the  act  of  complacency.  We 
shall  yet  see  how  the  land  bartered  away  for  a  song  became 
the  citadel  of  slavery  in  Missouri,  from  which  the  torch  of 

into  being  in  any  paxtof  the  territory  of  the  Union  —  leaving  the  District 
of  Columbia  out  of  consideration  —  by  means  of  a  legislative  act.  This 
and  all  other  constitutional  maxims  were  of  course  forgotten  the  moment 
their  points  were  turned  against  the  slave-holding  interest. 

'  Stat,  at  L..  V,  p.  34. 

'Indian  Treaties,  Stat,  at  L.,  VU,  p.  516. 

» Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  34, 

*  Thirty  Yeaxs'  View,  I,  pp.  6J>6,  627. 

10 


146   JAOKSON's  ADMINISTEATION AlfNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

civil  war  was  carried  into  Kansas.  But  above  all,  it  will  yet 
be  shown  how  frightfully  this  unresisted  sacrifice  of  principle 
avenged  itself  on  the  north.  If  the  north  now  did  not  even 
risk  a  parliamentary  battle  to  maintain  the  free  side  of  the 
Missouri  compromise  for  those  rich  lands  on  the  Missouri, 
what  reason  was  there  why  the  south  should  not  some  day 
tear  the  whole  document  into  fragments,  and  venture  the  ex- 
periment whether  it  were  not  possible  to  verify  "Wise's  threat 
of  carrying  slavery  into  the  heart  of  the  north? 


PEESIDENTS   ELECT.  147 

CHAPTER  III. 

VAN  BUREN'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

1.     His  Political  Cakeee  —  The  Crisis  of  1837  and 
THE  Independent  Teeasuet. 

The  proclamation  of  the  treaty  with  the  Sacs  and  Foxes, 
which  perfected  the  breaking  through  of  the  Missouri  line, 
was  one  of  Jackson's  last  governmental  acts.  Le  roi  est 
mort;  vive  le  roi!  So  thev  cry  in  the  United  States,  as  well 
as  in  the  monarchies  of  the  old  world.  The  first  officer  of 
the  republic  is  wont  to  become  a  victim,  to  a  greater  or  lesser 
extent,  of  political  paralysis,  for  some  time  previous  to  his 
official  death.  The  months  intervening  between  the  elec- 
tion of  a  new  president  and  his  inauguration  to  office,  con- 
stitute, as  a  rule,  a  species  of  interregnum.  All  eyes  are 
turned  from  the  setting  to  the  rising  constellation.  The 
constitution  has  so  amalgamated  the  executive  and  the  legis- 
lative branches  of  the  government,  in  their  functions,  that  it 
would  be  generally  considered  repugnant,  both  to  sound. pol- 
icy and  decorum,  for  either  to  go  beyond  the  limits  of  mere 
routine  business,  without  very  cogent  reason,  during  this 
time  of  transition.  If  a  party  of  opposition  has  come  forth 
from  the  battle  victorious,  any  important  political  action 
taken  by  the  party  still  in  power  is  denounced  as  a  violation 
of  the  principle  of  democracy.  Positive  law,  and  the  real  or 
assumed  genius  of  the  institutions  of  the  country,  come  in 
conflict  with  each  other.  As  the  victors  look  upon  it,  the 
defeated  endeavor  to  regain  a  part  of  the  prize  lost  in  the 
open  campaign  by  dishonorable  coups  de  main.  Parties 
learn  to  look  upon  one  another,  not  as  opponents,  but  as 


148  Jackson's  ADMTNiSTEATioN — anitexation  of  texas. 

enemies,  who  owe  one  another  no  regard.  If  there  has  been 
only  a  change  of  persons,  the  interest  of  the  party  has  usu- 
ally nothing  to  apprehend  from  the  short  delay.  It  is  con- 
sidered a  reasonable  wish  of  the  president-elect  to  enter  on 
the  office  not  less  free — within  the  limits  of  the  constitution 
and  of  the  party's  programme — in  what  relates  to  the  warp 
and  woof  of  his  policy,  than  was  his  predecessor. 

If  we  can  attach  absolute  faith  to  the  assurances  of  Jack- 
son's successor,  he  had  never  been  guilty  of  entertaining  this 
wish,  which,  in  his  particular  case,  would  have  been  an  un- 
warranted assumption.  In  his  inaugural  address,  Yan  Buren 
referred  to  the  fact  that  he  was  the  first  president  who  had 
had  no  part  in  the  transfiguration-splendor  of  the  revolution- 
ary period.^  But  if,  indeed,  criticism  approached  him  from 
the  first  with  a  different  disposition,  the  fact  was  to  be  ascribed 
to  this  purely  external  cause,  only  to  a  very  small  extent. 
Kot  only  as  to  time  did  he  stand  the  representative  of  a  new 
generation.  The  era  of  statesmen  had  come  to  a  close  with 
John  Quincy  Adams,  The  politicians,  who,  in  Jackson's 
election,  had  won  their  first  victory,  were  able,  only  eight 
years  later,  to  raise  a  man  from  their  own  ranks  to  the  pres- 
idential chair  —  Yan  Buren,  the  first  politician-president. 
Jackson  was  no  statesman,  but  he  was  a  character.  If  the 
era  of  the  politicians  dates  from  his  administration,  it  is  not 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  was  a  politician  himself,  but  to  the 
fact  that  his  character  made  him  as  pliable  as  wax  in  the 
hands  of  the  politicians.  His  "  reign  "  receives  the  stamp 
which  characterizes  it,  precisely  from  the  fact  that  the  poli- 

'  "  Unlike  all  who  have  preceded  me,  the  revolution  that  gave  us  exist- 
ence as  one  people  was  achieved  at  the  period  of  my  birth;  and  while  I 
contemplate  -v^ith  grateful  reverence  that  memorable  event,  I  feel  that  I 
belong  to  a  later  age,  and  that  I  may  not  expect  my  countrymen  to  weigh 
my  actions  with  the  same  kind  and  partial  hand."  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II, 
p.  1153. 


JACKSON  AKD   YAK   BUEEN.  149 

ticians  knew  how  to  make  his  character,  with  its  texture  of 
hrass,  the  battering  ram  with  which  to  break  down  the  last 
ramparts  which  opposed  their  rule.  Yan  Buren's  election 
was  the  last  and  strongest  manifestation  of  this  peculiar 
double  nature  of  Jackson's  administration.  There  was  only 
too  good  a  foundation  for  the  complaint  of  his  opponents, 
that  he  had  named  his  successor.^  But  the  watchword 
which,  ^vith  stentorian  voice,  he  gave  his  party,  was  now,  as 
it  had  often  been  before,  whispered  into  his  own  ear. 

The  external  appearance  of  the  two  men  was  perfectly  in 
keeping  with  the  attitude  which  they  ostensibly  assumed  to- 
wards each  other  and  towards  the  party.  The  picture  of 
the  rising  and  of  the  setting  sun  symbolized  them  very 
badly.  Rather  did  they  suggest  to  the  mind  the  little 
urchin  Evening  Star,  led  and  supported  by  the  strong  hand 
of  the  parent  Sun,  of  Hebel's  poem — Jackson,  a  man  with 
a  tall,  lean  form,  erect  and  straight,  his  fleshless  hand  firmly 
grasping  the  knob  of  his  walking  stick,  without  the  aid  of 
which  his  stiffened  legs  and  swollen  feet  refused  to  move 
with  their  wonted  certainty,  every  wrinkle  of  his  long, 
sharply  cut  face  carved  as  it  were  in  granite,  his  large  eyes 
behind  his  bushy  eye-brows  beaming  with  undiminished 
brightness  spite  of  his  spectacles,  his  white  but  still  plenti- 
ful hair  bristling  up  from  his  perpendicular  forehead — Yan 
Buren,  on  the  other  hand,  reaching  only  precisely  the  middle 
height,  in  blameless  toilette,  his  smooth  snow-white  shirt- 
bosom  in  complete  harmony  with  his  round  face,  carefully 
shaved  with  the  exception  of  very  decent  side-whiskers,  his 

'H.  Clay  to  Fr.. Brooke.  Wash.,  Dec.  19,  1836.  "If  a  president  may 
name  his  successor,  and  bring  the  whole  machinery  of  the  government,  in- 
cluding its  one  hundred  thousand  dependents,  into  the  canvass;  and  if  by 
such  means  he  achieves  a  victory,  such  a  fatal  precedent  as  this  must  be 
rebuked  and  reversed,  or  there  is  an  end  of  the  freedom  of  election.  No 
one  doubts  that  this  haa  been  done."    Piiv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  409. 


1 50  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

large  double  chin  finding  a  pleasant  support  on  his  broad 
black  cravat;  the  only  characteristic  folds  proceeding  from 
his  fleshy  underli]^:  a  settled  smile  in  which  a  studied,  oblig- 
ing manner,  native  good-nature  and  shrewdness  have 
equal  shares;  in  his  bright-colored,  vivacious,  twinkling  eyes, 
the  same  qualities  to  be  read;  a  round  high  forehead,  which 
appears  higher  still  from  the  absence  of  hair  on  the  crown, 
and  bears  evidence  of  endowments  without,  however,  wearing 
the  stamp  of  the  thinker;  a  friendly,  well-meaning  bourgeois, 
in  whom  the  largest  and  best  part  of  simplicity  and  honesty 
are  scarcely  much  more  than  skin-deep,  in  opposition  t6 
which  the  diplomatic  reserve  is  more  than  a  thin  varnish, 
laboriously  acquired  by  the  parvenu.  His  vsdde  mouth  is 
certainly  able  in  speech,  but  it  is  still  better  skilled  in  the 
art  of  a  silence  conscious  of  its  object.  The  man  understands 
how  to  wait  without  manifesting  the  least  sign  of  im- 
patience; but  he  will  never  walk  away  from  a  mark  which 
he  has  once  aimed  at,  and  he  thinks  himself  good  enough 
for  the  best.  Even  if  his  temperament  should  not  preserve 
him  from  palpable  misdeeds,  he  would  never  become  guilty 
of  them,  because  he  is  wise  enough  to  know  that  they  would 
be  irreparable  mistakes.  With  happy  facility,  he  recon- 
ciles himself  to  the  most  different  convictions  and  parts,  and 
even  to  those  of  the  man  sure  of  himself  and  rooted  in  prin- 
ciple. He  does  not  urge  his  boat  onward  by  the  powerful 
oar-strokes  of  his  own  arm,  but  he  knows  where  to  find  a 
proper  rag  as  a  sail  to  catch  every  wind  that  blows.  Yet 
even  the  storm  does  not  terrify  him  when  he  discovers,  by 
his  always  cool  process  of  calculation,  that  it  will  not  pre- 
sumably last  so  long  but  that  he  may  consider  himself  safe 
from  all  serious  danger.  For  no  object  can  he  risk  every- 
thing, for,  in  the  last  analysis,  ho  never  cares  for  an  idea; 
always  for  himself  and  for  himself  alone.  Not  whai  he 
strove  for,  but  how  he  strove  to  attain  his  end,  gave  it  to 


VAN  buren's  charactee.  151 

him  to  leave  behind  him  the  long  road  which  separated  the 
son  of  the  peasant  inn-keeper  from  the  president  of  the 
United  States.  In  place  of  the  policy  of  ends,  he  puts  the 
policy  of  means.  He  did  not  climb  to  the  height  of  the 
statesman,  but  neither  did  he  descend  into  the  depths  of  real 
demagogism.  From  the  very  first  to  the  last,  he  remained 
in  that  characterless  middle,  in  the  shallow  stagnant  water 
of  trading  politics.^  So  far  as  his  own  personal  interest  per- 
mitted, he  would  gladly  have  carried  out  some  of  his  political 
ideas,  and  he  had  at  least  one  really  statesmanlike  thought; 
but  the  propelling  forces  in  him  were  never  moral  powers 
which  he  served  for  their  own  sake. 

It  was  in  keeping,  not  only  with  the  position  of  ruler 
which  Jackson  had  assumed  for  eight  years  in  the  party, 
but  also  with  Yan  Buren's  own  most  real  nature,  that  he  en- 
tered on  the  presidency  without  any  programme  of  his  own. 
As  his  opponents  and  the  masses  of  his  own  party  looked 

'  The  "  New  York  Evening  Post "  thus  characterizes  him  in  1841 :  "  Mr. 
Van  Buren  has  Utile  moral  faith  of  any  kind;  barely  enough  to  need  no 
artificial  excitation  of  body  or  mind.  This  deficiency  drives  him  into  an 
artificial  code  of  poUtical  practice,  in  which  he  refers  all  social  actions  to 
individual  interests,  and  all  political  actions  to  combinations  of  those  in- 
terests. He  believes  firmly  in  the  force  of  management,  or  the  cool, 
considerate,  artful  application  of  general  propositions  to  the  existing  tem- 
per and  opinions  of  the  masses,  as  far  as  these  can  be  ascertained,  and 
without  any  leading  reference  to  their  propriety  or  durability.  His  gener- 
alization of  social  phenomena  never  reaches  so  far  as  to  a  moral  power,  ox 
necessary  truth  in  pubUc  opinion;  but  he  simply  deals  with  the  collective 
opinions  of  men,  as  manifested  by  the  representatives,  or  otherwise  con- 
spicuous individuals  from  or  among  the  people,  by  means  of  certain  easy 
rules  analogous  to  addition,  subtraction,  multiplication  and  division  in 
arithmetic.  He  belongs  wholly  to  the  present  time,  and  may  be  said  to 
represent  trading  or  business  politics.  He  is  the  very  impersonation  of 
party  in  its  strictest  features  of  formal  discipline  and  exclusive  combina- 
tion. He  is  ceremonious,  polite,  reserved  in  manner,  very  small,  and  ex- 
tremely neat  in  pei-son."  Mackenzie,  The  Lives  and  Opinions  of  B.  P.  But- 
ler and  Jesse  Hoyt,  p.  44. 


152  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ou  him  as  the  heir  chosen  by  Jackson,  if  not  to  his  power  at 
least  to  his  office,  so  he  declared,  himself,  that  his  pro- 
gramme was  to  be  Jackson's  imitator;  the  eagle  had  car- 
ried the  sparrow  beyond  the  clouds.^  Much  as  there  was  of 
truth  in  this  view,  it  was  none  the  less  true  that  Yan  Buren 
himself  had  done  the  best  he  could  to  insure  his  success.  And 
this,  not,  as  the  opposition  supposed,  the  weight  of  Jackson's 
patronage,  was  the  ominous  sign  of  the  time.^  There  was 
little  to  be  feared  that  a  president  would  ever  again  assume 
Jackson's  position,  which  was  entirely  sui  ge7ieris,  and  just  as 
little  was  it  to  be  feared  that  the  "  nomination  "  of  a  successor 
could  be  repeated.  But  there  were  a  great  many  Yan 
Burens  in  the  Union,  and  the  petty  means  by  which  he 
climbed  up  the  political  ladder,  even  to  the  uppermost  round, 
became  every  day  more  and  more  the  common  property  of 
all  politicians. 

His  first  political  studies  Yan  Buren  had  made  in  the 
country  tavern  of  his  father,  to  whom  his  duties  as  an  inn- 
keeper left  time  enough  to  cultivate  a  small  farm.  The  far- 
mers of  Columbia  county,  ]!^ew  York,  and  his  intelligent 
mother,  who  is  said  to  have  taken  a  lively  interest  in  public 
affairs,  were  his  first  political  tutors.  The  village  school  of 
Kinderhook  took  care  of  his  general  education,  which,  there- 

'  "  I  content  myself,  on  this  occasion,  with  saying,  that  I  consider  my- 
self the  honored  mstrument,  selected  by  the  friends  of  the  present  admin- 
istration, to  carry  out  its  principles  and  policy;  and  that  as  well  from  in- 
clination as  from  duty,  I  shall,  if  honored  with  the  choice  of  the  American 
people,  endeavor  to  tread  generally  in  the  footsteps  of  President  Jackson  — 
happy  if  I  shall  be  able  to  perfect  the  work  which  he  has  so  gloiiously 
commenced."  The  letter  of  acceptance  of  his  nomination  by  the  demo- 
cratic national  convention  at  Baltimore,  dated  the  29tli  of  May,  1835. 
Niles,  XLVIII,  p.  257. 

*  "  And  no  reflecting  man  can  doubt  that,  having  been  once  done,  it  will 
be  again  attempted,  and,  unless  corrected  by  the  people,  it  will  become,  in 
time,  the  established  practice  of  the  country."    Clay,  1.  c. 


VAN  bueen's  youth.  153- 

fore,  as  may  be  imagined,  remained  rather  superficial  and 
defective.^  In  his  fourteenth  year,  he  entered  the  office  of  the 
attorney  of  the  village  to  study  law.  The  seventh  year  of  the 
time  provided  by  law  for  study  he  spent  in  New  York  in  the 
office  of  the  lawyer  Yan  Ness,  whose  name  is  not  yet  quite 
forgotten  in  the  United  States,  for  the  reason  that  he  was  Burr's 
second  in  his  duel  with  Hamilton.  After  this,  Van  Buren  was 
for  five  yeai*s  actively  engaged  in  the  independent  practice  of 
his  profession  in  his  native  village  and  in  the  principal  city 
in  the  county.  If  the  suits  tried  here  were  of  a  character 
which  afforded  little  inducement  to  him  to  extend  and  deepen 
his  knowledge  of  the  law,  they  certainly  were  an  excellent 
school  for  the  young  political  aspirant.''  His  active  partici- 
pation in  electoral  campaigns  merited  a  county  office  for  him 
in  1808.  After  four  years,  an  opportunity  was  affiarded  him 
to  observe,  from  his  own  feelings,  what  a  powerful  political 
lever  official  positions  are  when  bestowed  in  accordance  with 

'  J.  A.  Hamilton,  who  stood  for  a  time  in  dose  relation  to  Van  Buren, 
writes:  "  Van  Buren  was  sagacious;  but  he  had  no  pretensions  to  being 
a  statesman,  he  had  no  skill  in  composition.  His  first  report  in  1829  [as 
secretary  of  state]  required  much  emendation.  I  remained  with  him  after 
he  entered  upon  the  duties  of  his  ofiBce,  in  April,  1829;  we  lived  together 
at  a  private  boarding-house  until  about  June  8,  1829.  During  that  time, 
in  conversation  about  the  historical  events  of  this  and  other  countries,  I  was 
amazed  to  learn  how  uninformed  he  was.  He  depended  upon  his  son  John 
to  aid  him  in  his  writings,  until  he  got  Mr.  Beiyamin  Butler,  afterwards 
attorney-general,  upon  whom  he  essentially  depended."  Reminiscences 
of  J.  A.  Hamilton,  p.  216. 

*  Mackenzie,  who,  indeed,  writes  with  great  animosity,  gives  us  the  fol- 
lowing description  of  him:  "  Martin  Van  Buren  the  elder,  was  a  shrewd, 
cunning,  clever  boy  —  very  fond  of  betting,  gambUng  and  card  playing — 
a  first-rate  pleader  for  a  small  fee,  in  cases  tried  before  a  justice  of  the 
peace  —  very  persevering  in  such  branches  of  study  as  he  found  particularly 
useful  —  good  at  tnuling  horses  and  making  bargains  —  and  endeavored  to 
give  some  consideration  to  that  branch  of  the  science  of  morals  called  pol- 
itics, at  a  very  early  age,  at  the  tavern."  The  Life  and  Times  of  M.  Van 
Biu-en,  p.  20. 


154  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  principle  of  reward  and  punishment.  But  tlie  loss  of 
the  county  office  was  soon  gotten  over,  as  he  was  elected  to 
the  state  senate  in  the  same  year.  This  opened  the  way  for 
him  to  independent  political  activity.  He  did  not  hesitate 
to  make  full  use  of  the  opportunity.  He  henceforth  lived 
intent  only  on  making  the  most  politically  of  his  opportuni- 
ties, restlessly  busy,  esteeming  nothing  too  small  which 
might  promote  his  influence,^  nothing  so  high  and  holy  as  to 
make  him  budge  from  his  sober  calculation  and  his  sleek 
politeness.  Tlie  office  of  attorney  general  of  New  York, 
which  he  had  filled  since  1815  without,  on  that  account,  giv- 
ing up  his  seat  in  the  senate,  was  taken  fi'om  him,  in  1819, 
by  the  Clinton  party.  But  he  no  longer  depended  on  the 
favors  of  the  great  ones;  he  was  now  one  of  them  himself. 
Even  the  year  previous,  he  had  felt  strong  enough  to  collect 
a  faction  of  his  own  about  him,  in  opposition  to  the  Clinto- 
nians.  The  personal  interests  of  the  coterie  furnished  the 
basis  of  the  party,  and  the  absence  of  political  ideas  was 
more  than  made  up  for  by  masterly  organization.  The  word 
of  command  from  Albany,  given  through  the  medium  of 
The  Argus^  was  unconditionally  obeyed.  The  person  who 
expected  anything  of  the  party  could  obtain  it  only  through 
the  "  regency,"  and  the  "  regency  "  took  care  to  be  repre- 

'  In  October,  1834,  llie  "  New  York  Evening  Star  "  writes:  "  When  we 
look  at  the  career  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  we  are  astonished  at  his  persever- 
ance, his  industiy,  his  close  calculations  and  his  active,  untiring  spirit. 
Ever  restless  and  perturbed,  there  is  no  chance  that  he  leaves  untouched  — 
no  efforts  untried.  He  travels  from  county  to  county,  from  town  to  town; 
sees  eveiybody,  talks  to  everybody,  comforts  the  disappointed,  and  flattera 
the  expectant  with  hope  of  success.  The  portrait  is  drawn  by  M.  M.  Noah, 
who  remained  a  long  time  with  Van  Buren  under  one  roof." 

*  "  Without  a  paper  thus  edited  at  Albany,  we  may  hang  our  harps  on 
the  willows.  With  it,  the  party  can  survive  a  thousand  such  convulsions 
as  those  which  now  agitate  and  probably  alarm  most  of  those  aiound  you," 
Van  Buren  to  J.  Hoyt,  January  31, 1823.  Mackenzie,  The  Life  and  Opin- 
ions of  B.  Butler  and  J.  Hoyt,  p.  89. 


VAN  BTJEEN  AS   A   STATESMAN.  155 

sen  ted  in  the  remotest  corners,  by  agents  who  were  out 
after  their  pay.  The  political  machinery  gave  Yan  Buren 
control  over  the  state  of  New  York,  and  the  state  of  New 
York  carried  so  much  weight  in  all  national  questions  that 
Van  Buren,  even  before  he  had  played  any  part  in  national 
politics,  belonged  to  those  with  whom  it  was  necessary  to 
reckon.^ 

Spite  of  all  his  gifts,  we  can  scarcely  perceive  any  pro- 
gressive development  of  Yan  Buren's  political  capacity  after 
his  early  student  years,  although  naturally  he  steadily  im- 
pi'oved  in  tlie  routine  of  political  business.  We  can  recog- 
nize only  one  internal  change,  and  this  one  lies  in  an  en- 
tirely opposite  direction.  In  two  important  questions  he 
showed  that  he  was  both  morally  and  intellectually  qualified 
to  be  more  than  the  model  of  the  trading  politician.  In  the 
constitutional  convention  of  New  York  in  1821,  he  conrage- 
ously  and  with  weighty  reasoning  opposed  the  introduction 
of  universal  suffrage.  This  did  not  subsequently  keep  him 
from  being  the  most  zealous  partisan  of  Jackson's  theory  of 
the  democracy.  And  so,  in  the  two  preceding  years,  he  had 
declared  himself  in  favor  of  tlie  prohibition  of  slavery  in 
Missouri.  Ilis  efforts  in  favor  of  the  reelection  to  the  United 
States  senate  of  Ruf  us  King,  who  had  taken  a  prominent  po- 


'"nie  "Democratic  Review"  (July,  1848,  p.  4),  which  had  in  previous 
years  sung  the  praises  of  the  "sage  of  Kinderhook  "  in  every  key,  writes: 
"  The  scheme  of  state  politics  devised  by  him  in  1821,  through  which  he 
controlled  New  York,  and,  holding  in  his  hands  the  electoral  vote  of  this 
state,  dictated  to  the  Union,  is  still  a  subject  of  admiration  and  theme  of 
praise  to  those  followers  who  look  upon  party  trickery  as  statesmanship, 
and  who  regard  skill  in  legerdemain  as  praiseworthy  as  great  learning 
in  the  sciences.  Party  centralization  at  Albany,  controUing  oflBces  as  well 
as  safety-bank  charters,  presidents,  cashiers  and  directors  in  all  the  counties, 
formed  machinery  which  set  every  man's  face  towards  Albany  like  a  polit- 
ical Merx;a,  and  working  this  machinery  gave  Mr.  Van  Buren  his  title  to 
national  honors." 


156  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

sition  among  the  advocates  of  the  "  restriction,"  ^  were  deter- 
mined, indeed,  by  otiier  reasons;  but,  like  all  other  senators, 
he,  on  the  20tli  of  January,  1820,  voted  for  the  strictly-framed 
resolution  of  the  house  of  representatives  against  the  admis- 
sion of  Missouri  as  a  slave  state.' 

The  Missouri  question  had  just  been  brought  to  an  issue 
when  Yan  Buren  entered  the  United  States  senate.  Before 
he  there  irrevocably  pledged  himself  to  one  side  or  the  other 
of  the  slavery  question,  he  had  leisure  to  study  the  influence 
which  his  attitude  towards  it  would  necessarily  henceforth 
exert  on  the  prospects  of  every  politician.  Well  as  he  had 
learned  to  guide  the  political  machine  in  his  own  state,  on 
the  larger  stage  he  had  yet  much  to  learn.  He  made  many 
a  mistake  during  the  first  years,  but  he  learned  much  from 
every  blunder.     In  the  presidential  electoral  campaign  of 

'  The  '*  Columbus  Enquirer  "  writes,  in  the  autumn  of  1835:  "  In  all  this 
insidious  and  dangerous  collision  between  the  rights  of  Missouri,  the  inter- 
ests of  the  southern  states,  and  the  madness  and  meanness  of  their  assail- 
ants. Van  Buren  took  a  deep  and  active  part  against  us.  Here  is  the 
proof:  Rufus  King,  then  a  senator  from  New  York,  was  the  soul  and  life- 
blood  of  the  conspiracy.  Martin  Van  Buren  was  then  in  the  senate  from 
that  state,  and  urged  the  movement  and  vindicated  the  conduct  of  King. 
Read  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Van  Buren,  in  the 
autumn  of  1819,  to  one  of  his  friends:  '  I  should  regret  to  feel  any  flag- 
ging on  the  subject  of  Mr.  King.  We  are  committed  to  his  support.  It 
is  both  wise  and  honest,  and  we  must  have  no  fluttering  in  our  course. 
Mr.  King's  views  towards  us  are  both  honest  and  correct.  The  Missouri 
question  conceal.*,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  no  plot,  and  we  shall  give  it  a 
true  direction.  You  know  what  the  feelings  and  views  of  our  friends  were 
when  I  saw  you;  and  you  know  what  we  then  concluded  to  do.  My  con- 
Biderations,  etc.,  and  the  aspect  of  the  'Argus,'  will  show  you  that  we 
Lave  entered  on  the  work  in  earnest.  We  cannot,  therefore,  look  back. 
Let  us  not,  therefore,  have  any  halting.  I  will  put  my  head  on  its  propri- 
ety.' "    Niles,  XLIX,  p.  93. 

Van  Buren  traveled  over  the  state,  and  together  with  Marcy,  wrote  a 
pamphlet  in  King's  interest.  Mackenzie,  The  Life  and  Times  of  M.  Van 
Buren,  p.  278. 

'  The  resolution  is  to  be  foond  in  Niles,  XLIX,  p.  142. 


VAN  btieen's  schemes.  157 

1824,  he  was,  of  conrse,  a  zealous  partisan  of  Crawford, 
since  it  was  long  certain  that  the  latter  wonld  be  nominated 
by  the  "  caucus,"  and  that  he  would  therefore  be  the  "  regu- 
lar "  party  candidate.  Besides,  Crawford,  to  insure  himself  the 
VQta  of  New  York,  had  known  how  to  bring  it  about  that 
Georgia  should  nominate  Yan  Buren  for  the  vice-presidency. 
At  first  all  that  Yan  Buren  reaped  from  this  was  ridicule, 
as,  evidently,  in  no  other  state  could  the  acquiescence  of  the 
party  be  obtained  to  this  choice.  But  his  name  was  once 
mentioned  in  connection  with  the  second  office  in  the  Union, 
and  he  had  time  to  wait.  The  bad  success  which  attended 
the  caucus  did  not  keep  him  from  doing  his  best  for  Craw- 
ford. But,  altliough  it  was  possible  to  avert  the  storm  which, 
in  New  York,  wanted,  in  the  place  of  the  nomination  of  the 
presidential  electors  by  the  legislature,  to  put  their  election 
by  the  people,  Crawford  received  only  five  of  the  thirty-six 
votes  of  the  state ;  of  the  remaining  thirty-one,  twenty-six  were 
given  to  Adams,  whom  Yan  Buren  also  preferred  to  the  other 
competitors  of  Crawford.  Of  Jackson,  the  organ  of  "  the  re- 
gency" thought  there  was  no  use  in  talking  in  New  York.' 
The  chief  of  the  regency  soon  thought  otherwise.  "Wlien  the 
choice  through  the  electors  had  led  to  no  result,  he  and  his 
friends  remained  passive.  Yan  JBuren's  confidence  in  the 
party  machinery  was  not  shaken,  but  he  recognized  that  the 
congressional  caucus  had  become  an  entirely  useless  piece  of 
it.  Tlie  effect  which  the  election  of  Adams  by  the  house  of 
representatives  and  Clay's  nomination  as  secretary  of  state, 
had  with  the  masses,  taught  him  how  it  was  to  be  replaced. 

'  "  It  is  idle  in  this  state,  however  it  may  be  in  others,  to  strive  even  for 
a  moderate  support  of  Mr.  Jackson.  He  is  wholly  out  of  the  question,  as 
far  as  the  votes  of  New  York' are  in  it.  Independently  of  the  disclosures 
of  his  pohtical  opinions,  he  could  not  be  the  repubUcan  candidate.  He  ia 
respected  as  a  gallant  soldier,  but  he  stands  in  the  minds  of  the  i)eople  of 
this  state  at  an  immeasurable  distance  from  the  executive  chair."  "  Albany 
Argus."    Nilea,  XLLX,  p.  188. 


158   JAjCKSON's  administration ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

From  being  a  cool  friend  of  Adams,  he  suddenly  became  a 
decided  opponent  of  the  administration.  He  saw  that  Jack- 
son was  the  man  of  the  future,  or  that,  at  least,  he  might 
be  easily  made  such,  but  his  watchward  was  profound  si- 
lence, until  he  had  had  the  full  price  for  his  assistance 
guaranteed  to  him.  "Wliat  he  thought  of  tlie  scorn  with 
which  his  nomination  by  Georgia  was  greeted,  people  had 
heard  even  during  the  electoral  campaign  of  1824.  The 
New  York  American  announced  that  even  now  the  princi- 
pal question  was,  whether  Yan  Buren  was  to  be  president 
after  the  fourth  of  March,  1833,  and  it  adduced  important 
reasons  for  this  opinion.^  In  December,  1826,  it  is  said  that 
Yan  Buren  and  the  original  Jackson  party  came  to  an  un- 
derstanding, and  in  May,  1827,  the  conditions  of  the  compact 
were  made  public.  Yan  Buren  was  to  be  Jackson's  secretary 
of  state,  and  to  succeed  him  after  four  years  as  president; 
he  obligated  himself,  on  the  other  hand,  in  economic  ques- 
tions, to  favor  tlie  policy  of  the  southern  states.^ 

'"The  apparent  question  now  before  the  public  is,  who  shall  be  our 
next  president?  but  the  real  question  is,  whether  Martin  Van  Buren  shall 
be  president  of  the  United  States  on  and  after  the  4th  of  March,  1833?  At 
that  time,  the  great  state  of  New  York,  having  never  furnished  a  president, 
will  have  irresistible  claims  to  that  honor.  If  any  of  her  citizens  are  now 
qualified  [an  allusion  to  De  Witt  Clinton],  the  blossoms  of  eternity,  fast 
gathering  on  their  heads,  will  have  fallen,  they  will  be  superannuated,  that 
is,  they  will  have  passed  the  age  of  sixty  years,  that  gloomy  period  when 
the  constitution  of  New  York  declares  that  judges  lose  their  senses,  and 
that  all  flesh  is  grass.  In  that  day  Mr.  Van  Buren  will  be  in  the  full 
strength  of  life,  the  only  New  Yorker  fit  for  the  presidency."  Cited  by 
Parton,  Life  of  A.  Jackson,  III,  p.  32. 

*"From  a  source  I  cannot  as  yet  mention,  I  learn  that  Van  Buren's 
bargain  with  Jackson's  friends  —  their  mutual  imderstanding,  1  may  as 
well  call  it  —  bears  date  in  December,  1826.  In  that  month  he  expected  the 
friends  of  Adams  to  attack  him,  and  soon  afterwards  (February,  1827)  he 
and  Cambreleng  [one  of  the  noted  politicians  of  New  York]  are  seen  direct- 
mg  Hoyt  to  circulate  Gen.  Green's  '  Telegraph.'  In  April,  they  are  off  to 
South  Carolina,  from  whence  their  equally  flexible  associate,  Ritchie,  re- 


VAN  BUBEN   AND   OALHOITN.  159 

De  Witt  Clinton's  death  made  a  partial  change  in  the 
programme  necessary,  and  gave  Yan  Bnren  an  opportunity 
to  make  surer  of  his  game.  Instead  of  Clinton,  Calhoun 
appeared  as  a  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency,  and  Yan 
Buren  caused  himself  to  be  put  up  as  a  candidate  for  the  gov- 
ernorship of  !N^ew  York.  All  were  successful.  Yan  Buren, 
whose  past  as  a  statesman  was  an  empty  page,  resigned  the 
governorship  which  he  had  scarcely  entered  upon,  and,  as 
secretary  of  state,  stood  at  the  head  of  Jackson's  cabinet 
Every  one  had  known  that  it  would  be  so,  and  no  one  won- 
dered that  it  was  so.  It  was  no  longer  a  matter  of  surprise 
that  the  politicians  got  the  start  of  the  statesmen. 

Adams  had  not  yet  left  the  White  House  when  the  pre- 
tenders to  the  heritage  of  Jackson,  Yan  Buren  and  Calhoun, 
opened  their  batteries  of  intrigue  upon  one  another.*    The 

ceives  a  letter,  dated  '  Charleston,  S.  Car.,  May  7, 1827,'  and  here  it  is  from 
the  'Richmond  Enquirer,'  eighteen  months  before  Jackson's  election: 

"  '  Our  friend  Van  Buren  has  at  last  reconciled  nearly  all  the  most  im- 
portant jarring  claims  and  interests.  Gen.  Andrew  Jackson  consents  to 
accept  of  tlie  presidency  of  the  United  States,  pledging  himself  inviolably 
to  subserve  the  people  of  the  south,  and  to  resign  at  the  end  of  four  years. 
John  C.  Calhoun  has  been  prevailed  upon,  in  conformity  to  the  wishes  of 
some  of  our  most  influential  friends,  to  relinquish  his  claims  upon  the  vice- 
presidency.  Every  effort  is  to  be  made  to  induce  De  Witt  Clinton  to  accept^ 
the  vice-presidency.  Martin  Van  Buren  to  serve  as  secretary  of  state  under 
General  Jackson,  and  at  the  end  of  four  years  to  be  nominated  and  sup- 
ported for  the  presidency;  with  a  perfect  understanding  that  he  will  pur- 
sue the  southern  policy,  in  relation  to  domestic  manufactures  and  internal 
improvements.'  "    Mackenzie,  Life  and  Times  of  M.  Van  Buren,  p.  83. 

•  H.  aay  to  Fr.  Brooke,  Wash.,  Dec.  26,  1828.  "  It  is  said  that  a  good 
deal  of  jealousy  is  felt,  and  in  private  circles  sometimes  manifests  itself, 
among  the  partisans  of  the  vice-president  and  the  governor-elect  of  New 
York."    Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay.  p.  215. 

In  New  York,  a  letter  from  Washington  was  published,  in  which  we 
read:  "  There  are  strong  tymptoms  of  a  speedy  dissolution  of  the  '  com- 
bination.' The  ends  of  both  sections  of  the  party  are  answered.  The 
game  has  been  run  down,  and,  like  hounds,  they  are  about  fighting  for  the 
prey  they  have  made  their  own.    Van  Buren 'b  friends  wish  to  have  him  in 


160    JACKBOn's  ADMINISTKATIOK AOTTEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

process  of  undeceiving  to  which  the  Calhoun  faction  was 
subjected  by  the  composition  of  the  cabinet,  embittered 
the  strife.^  So  far  as  the  issue  of  the  controversy  depended 
on  Jackson,  it  could,  from  the  first,  be  scarcely  doubtful 
which  of  the  rivals  would  obtain  the  victory.  Two  such 
headstrong  persons  as  Jackson  and  Calhoun  do  not  make 
yoke-fellows.  But  it  was  not  a  difficult  matter  for  the  little 
plastic  Yan  Buren  not  to  strike  or  rub  against  the  angles 
and  corners  of  the  president.  Flatteringly  and  warmly  he 
insinuated  himself  into  every  crack  and  rent  in  the  coarse 
bark  of  "Old  Hickory,"  while, in  Calhoun,  Jackson  was  con- 
fronted with  a  character.  Calhoun  had  also,  indeed,  read 
the  signs  of  the  time  well  enough  to  attach  much  importance 
to  the  good  will  of  the  idol  of  the  masses,  but  he  had  never 
fawned  upon  him.  He  would  have  given  much  to  be  Jack- 
son's successor,  but  his  ambition  had  not  so  far  degenerated 
into  vanity  that  he  would  have  bargained  his  independence 
and  his  convictions  for  the  presidency.  Kot  even  in  the 
great  political  question  as  to  Mrs.  Eaton's  social  fitness  did 
he  consent  to  cover  up  his  place  in  the  opposition.  Mrs. 
Calhoun  would  not  see  the  lady  whose  previous  chastity  had 
become  a  question  of  national  importance,  in  her  parlors.^ 
The  widower  Yan  Buren  not  only  did  not  permit  himself  to 

tiie  cabinet.  To  this,  Calhoun's  object,  and  these  rival  chieftains  scatter 
through  the  crowd,  by  means  of  their  partisans'  ambiguous  phrases,  preg- 
nant with  future  contests  and  political  divisions."  Cited  in  Parton,  Life 
of  A.  Jackson,  III,  p.  168. 

'Adams  writes  in  his  diary,  on  the  19th  of  March,  1829:  "Seymour 
says  there  is  already  great  bitterness  between  the  partisans  of  Van  Buren 
and  those  of  Calhoun."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  VIII,  p.  116.  Compare, 
also,  Priv.  Corresp.  of  D.  Webster,  I,  p.  488;  Piiv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay. 
p.  261. 

•Adams  even  writes:  "Calhoun  heads  the  moral  party.  Van  Buren 
that  of  the  frail  sisterhood;  and  he  is  notoriously  engaged  in  canvassing 
for  the  presidency  by  paying  his  court  to  Mrs.  Eaton."  Mem.  of  J.  Q. 
Adams,  VHI,  p.  185.    See,  also,  p.  195. 


THE  WORK   OF   MAJOR    LEWIS.  161 

be  wanting  in  courtesy  to  her,  to  any  extent,  but  he  took 
great  pains,  with  the  assistance  of  some  unmarried  ambas- 
sadors, by  measures  of  intrigue,  to  have  her  received  as  one 
fully  entitled  to  all  the  social  distinction  of  her  husband's 
position.  People  were  soon  convinced  that  in  this  way  he 
liad  taken  a  giant  step  towards  reaching  the  goal  of  his 
aspirations  —  the  presidency.^  The  personal  breach  between 
Jackson  and  Calhoun,  which  soon  afterwards  followed,  left  the 
way  entirely  clear  for  Yan  Buren;  only  he  was  obliged  to 
wait  patiently  four  years  longer  than  he  had  hoped  and  ex- 
pected at  first. 

Even  before  the  bitter  war  of  pens  between  the  president 
and  vice-president  had  begun.  Major  Lewis,  the  head  of  the 
"  Kitchen  Cabinet,"  commenced  the  agitation  in  favor  of 
Jackson's  reelection.  During  the  second  week  of  March, 
1830,  that  is,  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  second  year  of 
Jackson's  administration,  the  jldus  Achate^  in  the  White 
House,  wrote  the  letter  in  which,  a  few  days  later,  sixty- 
eight  members  of  the  legislature  of  the  "  Keystone  state," 
Pennsylvania,  announced  to  the  president,  that  is,  to  the 
people,  that  the  salvation  of  the  party  and  of  the  country 
imperatively  demanded  his  reelection.^     Members  of   the 

'  D.  Webster  to  Mr.  Button,  Wash.,  Jan.  15,  1830:  "Mr.  Van  Buren 
has  evidently,  at  this  moment,  quite  the  lead  in  influence  and  importance. 
He  controls  all  the  pages  on  the  back  stairs,  and  flatters  what  seems  to  be 
at  present  the  Aaron's  serpent  among  the  president's  desires,  a  settled 
purpose  of  making  out  the  lady,  of  whom  so  much  has  been  said,  a  person 
of  reputation.  It  is  odd  enough,  but  too  evident  to  be  doubted,  that  the 
consequence  of  this  dispute  in  the  social  and  fashionable  world  is  produc- 
ing great  political  effects,  and  may  very  probably  determine  who  shall 
be  successor  to  the  precent  chief  magistrate."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  D.  Web- 
ster, I,  p.  483. 

*This  highly  instructive  correspondence  is  given  verbatim  in  Parton, 

Life  of  Jackson,  III,  pp.  297-302.    The  formal  resolutions  of  the  caucus 

of  the  3l8t  of  March  are  to  be  found  in  Niles,  XXXVIII,  pp.  169,  170. 

Lewis  is  not  correct,  however,  when,  in  a  note  to  his  correspondence  with 

11 


162  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

legislatures  of  New  York^  and  Ohio^  followed  the  example, 
aa  Lewis  himself  boasted,  induced  to  do  so  by  him.^  Web- 
ster was  presumably  right  when  he  thought  that  Jackson 
had,  from  the  first,  wished  for  reelection;  but  he,  indeed, 
underestimated  Yan  Buren's  keen  insight  when  he  said, 
that  the  latter  now  did  as  the  Romans  did  only  to  reap 
some  advantage  from  the  disagreeable  necessity.  It  is 
probable  that  Van  Buren  was  really  convinced  —  and,  indeed, 
not  without  reason  —  that  it  needed  Jackson's  popularity  to 
claim  the  field  against  the  opposition  of  the  three  most  distin- 

Colonel  L.  C.  Stanbaugh,  he  says:  "This  was  the  first  movement  made 
tovrard  bringing  oat  General  Jackson  for  a  second  term."  Even  in  Decem- 
ber; 1829,  the  press  of  New  York  had  begun  to  discuss  the  question  with 
vigor.  The  "  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer,"  of  the  19th  of  December, 
expressed  the  hope  that  the  question  of  succession  would  not  be  seriously 
agitated  until  such  time  as  Jackson  had  given  a  final  decision  as  to  his 
reflection;  but  that  if  he  decHned  it,  Van  Buren  was  unquestionably  the 
right  man. 

The  following  quotation  from  Adams'  diary  throws  wonderful  light  on 
the  situation  of  affairs:  "  He  (Major  Mercer)  said  he  had  been  some  time 
at  Harrisburg,  and  seen  much  of  the  members  of  the  legislature;  that  he 
had  seen  but  one  man  who  spoke  in  terms  of  approbation  of  the  present 
administration,  and  that  was  a  senator  by  the  name  of  Krepps  —  the  same 
with  whom  Major  Donelson  has  had  a  correspondence  respecting  the  nom- 
ination of  Greneral  Jackson  for  re-election  by  the  members  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania legislature.  This  nomination  was  made  by  a  meeting  of  more  than 
half  the  members  of  the  legislature,  although  every  one  of  them  except 
Krepps  was  open-mouthed  against  him.  He  said  he  asked  several  of  them 
why,  holding  and  expressing  such  opinions,  they  could  vote  a  nomination 
of  him  again.  They  said  the  people  had  not  been  disabused  of  their  pr^'u- 
dice  in  his  favor,  and  if  they  should  hesitate  about  his  reflection  they 
would  be  turned  out  by  their  constituents."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  YlII, 
p.  351. 

•Niles,  XXXVIIT,  pp.  170, 171. 

«Ibid.,  XL,  p.  127. 

•Adams  writes,  on  the  2l8t  of  April,  1830:  "The  Harrisburg  and  Al- 
bany nominations  of  Jackson  for  re-election,  were  a  trick  of  Van  Buren's 
against  Calhoun."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  Vlll,  p.  222. 


THE  WOKK   OF   MAJOR   LEWIS.  163 

gnislied  statesmen  of  the  Union.*  He  could,  moreover,  be  well 
resigned  to  the  short  delay,  as  Jackson,  long  before  he  had 
formally  declared  himself  ready  to  accept  the  presidency  a  sec- 
ond time,  had  designated  him  by  letter,  and  in  a  manner  which 
conld  not  be  misunderstood,  as  his  most  worthy  heir.  The 
father  of  this  idea  again  was  the  inevitable  Major  Lewis,  and 
his  motive,  fear  that  Jackson,  the  condition  of  whose  health 
warranted  the  most  serions  alarm,  might  die  before  the  great 
"  principles  "  of  his  reign  had  been  fought  out.  To  provide 
for  this  case,  the  president,  under  Lewis's  correction,  wrote  a 
letter  to  his  old  friend.  Judge  Overton.  The  copy  which 
the  Major  retained,  Jackson  subscribed  with  his  own  hand, 
in  order  to  place  it  fully  in  his  power  to  use  the  name  of  the 
dead  lion  as  a  "  powerful  lever  in  raising  Van  Buren  to  the 
presidency." ' 

The  fears  of  Lewis  turned  out  to  be  unfounded,  but  never- 
theless sedulous  efforts  were  made  to  make  Yan  Buren's 
eventual  success  certain.  When  the  quarrel  with  Cal- 
houn and  his  faction,  together  with  the  Eaton  scandal,  made 
a  reorganization  of  the  inharmonious  and  wrangling  cabinet 
necessaiy,  a  good  opportunity  to  push  this  matter  also  a  long 
step  further  was  offered.  Immediately  after  his  entrance  on 
the  duties  of  the  presidency,  Jackson  sent  a  written  docu- 
ment to  the  members  of  his  cabinet,  in  which  he  had  devel- 
oped the  "  principles"  of  his  administration.  In  this  docu- 
ment, it  was  laid  down  that  no  head  of  a  department  should, 
during  the  time  he  remained  in  office,  become  a  candidate 
for  the  presidency  or  vice-presidency.  Sooner  or  later,  there- 
fore, Yan  Buren  had  to  withdraw.  To  do  so  now,  would  be 
to  kill  two  birds  with  the  same  stone.   After  Eaton  had  gladly 

'  Clay,  Webster,  Calhoun. 

'  The  letter  to  Overton,  and  the  explanatory  remarks  by  Lewis,  are  re- 
prodacedin  Parton,  Life  of  A.  Jackson,  III,  pp.  293-295,  A  misprint 
makes  the  date  of  the  letter  December  31,  1830,  instead  of  December  31, 
1829. 


164  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

given  up  the  office  which  he  had  accepted  only  reluctantly, 
and  Yan  Buren  had  resigned,  Jackson  declared  to  their  col- 
leagues that  the  necessary  harmonious  character  of  the  cab- 
inet could  not  be  maintained  by  only  a  partial  reconstruc- 
tion ;  the  ministers  entirely  devoted  to  Jackson  handed  in 
their  resignations,  that  the  friends  of  Calhoun  might,  without 
any  violation  of  the  rules  of  decency,  with  great  politeness 
be  shown  the  door.  This  was  the  determining  cause  of  this 
cou])  d'  Stat  within  the  government  (April,  1831).  It  was, 
therefore,  telling  a  bold  untrutli,  when  Jackson  afterwards 
asserted  that  Yan  Buren's  future  candidacy  for  the  presidency 
could  not  have  come  into  consideration  at  all  in  this  matter, 
since  his  candidacy  was  not  at  the  time  had  in  view  by  any 
one.^  The  letter  to  Judge  Overton  and  its  history,  might,  at 
the  moment,  have  been  blotted  from  the  memory  of  the  old 

'  "  I  say  he  [Judge  Whitel  cannot  have  forgotten  that  one  of  my  first 
acts  as  president  was,  to  reduce  to  writing  the  general  principles  which 
would  gu^de  my  pubhc  course,  one  of  which,  in  reference  to  my  cabinet, 
was  the  following :  '  That  no  head  of  department  should  become  a  candi- 
date for  the  office  of  president  or  vice-president  of  the  United  States, 
while  he  remained  in  the  department.'  .  .  .  If  I  had  set  out  with  the  ex- 
pectation of  influencing  the  choice  which  the  people  were  to  make  of  some 
one  to  succeed  me  in  the  office  of  president,  it  is  not  probable  that  tlais  rule, 
excluding  all  members  of  my  cabinet  from  the  field  of  competition,  would 
have  been  adopted  —  so  that,  at  least  up  to  the  time  of  the  difficulties 
which  led  to  the  dissolution  of  that  cabinet,  it  will  be  difficult  to  find  an 
excuse  for  the  allegations  he  has  been  at  so  much  pains  to  preface  with  the 
Herring  case.  But  he  may  have  only  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that  the 
organization  of  a  new  cabinet  was  controlled  by  a  desire  of  mine  to  pro- 
mote the  interests  of  Mr.  Van  Buren.  Here,  too,  he  is  equally  unfortu- 
nate, for  it  is  well  known,  that  at  this  period  Mr.  Van  Buren's  name  had 
not  been  announced,  and,  as  far  as  I  have  been  informed,  had  not  been 
thought  of  as  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  president  or  vice-president.  It 
was  not  until  he  was  rejected  as  minister  to  England,  that  the  republican 
portion  of  the  people,  becoming  indignant  at  the  reasons  which  produced 
it,  with  one  voice,  from  Maine  to  Jjouisiana,  declared  him  their  candidate, 
and  elected  him."  Kx-President  Jackson  to  the  people:  Reply  to  Judge 
H.  L.  White,  June,  1837.    Niles,  LH,  p.  299. 


VAN  BUEBn's  FOBTUNB  MADE.  165 

man,  but  he  could  not  possibly  have  forgotten  Yan  Buren's 
letter  of  resignation,  in  which  the  secretary  of  state  assigned 
this  fV.ct,  with  calculating  verbosity,  as  the  sole  motive  of  his 
withdrawal.^  It  is,  however,  true,  that  Yan  Buren's  triumph 
became  complete  only  through  the  stupidity  of  the  opposition.* 
The  masses  of  the  people  looked  on  the  refusal  of  the  senate 
to  confirm  his  nomination  as  minister  to  England  as  a  ma- 
licious stroke  of  his  rivals.  If  their  devoted  friendship  for 
Jackson  had  drawn  this  insult  npon  them,  it  was  a  duty  which 
they  owed  to  Jackson  and  to  tliemselves,  to  demonstrate  in 
a  most  striking  way  that  "  the  people  "  ruled.  Benton  was 
right  when,  immediately  after  the  vote  was  taken,  he  said: 
"You  have  broken  a  minister  and  elected  a  vice-president."* 
Yan  Buren's  fortune  was  now  made.  The  manner  in 
which  the  senate  had  rejected  his  nomination  was  a  personal 
insult  to  Jackson.  With  all  the  regardlessness  of  which  he 
was  capable,  he  henceforth  labored  for  the  success  of  his  fa- 
vorite. Only  by  the  election  of  Yan  Bureu.  it  was  now  said, 
could  tlie  people  guarantee  to  themselves  the  permanent  pos- 
session of  the  conquests  which  they  owed  to  Jackson.*    The 

■  Ibid.,  XL,  pp.  143, 144. 

*  How  far  this  stupidity  went  is  manifest  from  the  following  citation 
from  a  letter  of  Clay  to  Fr.  Brooke,  dated  May  1, 1831:  "Did  you«ver 
read  such  a  letter  as  Mr.  Van  Buren's?  It  is  perfectly  characteristic  of 
the  man  —  a  labored  effort  to  conceal  the  true  motives,  and  to  assign  as- 
sumed ones,  for  his  resignation,  under  the  evident  hope  of  profiting  by  the 
latter.  The  '  delicate  step,'  1  apprehend,  has  been  taken,  because,  foresee- 
ing the  gathering  storm,  he  wished  early  to  secure  a  safe  refuge.  Whether 
that  will'be  on  his  farm  or  at  London,  we  shall  see.  Meantime,  our  cause 
can  not  fail  to  be  benefited  by  the  measure."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay, 
pp.  299,  300.  Clay,  indeed,  looked  through  a  peculiarly  thick  mist,  be- 
cause he  had  calculated  with  certainty  for  years,  on  moving  into  the 
White  House  on  the  4th  of  March,  1833.  See  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
vni,  p.  86. 

•Thirty  Years'  View,  1,  p.  215. 

*  '*  The  late  executive,  then,  has  had  his  will  carried  into  effect  by  the 
vote  of  the  American  people.    They  have  listened  to  his  statements,  '  that 


166  Jackson's  ADMuasTUATioN  —  annexation  of  texas. 

president  did  not  blush  to  make  use  of  his  franking  privi- 
lege to  bring  his  own  case  as  well  as  that  of  Yan  Buren  be- 
fore the  people.  Numbers  of  the  Globe,  containing  a  speech 
bj  Benton  on  the  expunging  resolution,  and  a  deluge  of 
charges  against  Judge  White,  under  the  fi'ank  of  the  pres- 
ident, were  sent  to  all  the  members  of  the  legislatures  of 
Tennessee  and  Alabama.^  In  a  letter  intended  to  justify 
this  unexampled  descent  from  his  elevated  position  to  take 
part  personally  in  political  fist-fights,  he  declared  it  to  be  his 
duty  as  the  guardian  of  the  constitution  to  enlighten  the 
people  on  the  unconstitutional  encroachments  of  the  senate. 
The  attacks  on  Judge  White  he  did  not  expressly  refer  to. 
He  did  not  dare,  or  did  not  think  it  worth  the  trouble,  to 
say  that  they  were  accidentally  to  be  found  in  the  same  num- 
ber of  the  administration  organ.  If  it  were  not  precisely  his 
duty,  it  was  at  least  his  unquestionable  right  to  bring  all 
"  useful "  documents  or  papers  before  the  people  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  country.^    But  in  Jackson's  eyes.  White  had 

tiie  whole  value  of  his  administration  would  be  lost  unless  Mr.  Van  Buren 
was  elected  to  carry  out  his  unfinished  measures.' "  Speech  of  Judge 
White  at  KnoxviUe,  August  1,  1838.    Niles,  LV,  p.  8. 

•  Ibid.,  XLTX,  pp.  139,  294,  335;  see  also  pp.  35  and  92. 

*  "By  my  oath  of  office,  I  am  not  only  bound  to  support  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  but  to  guard,  protect,  and  defend  it  to  the  best  of  my 
abilities.  .  .  .  Thus  assailed  [by  the  resolutions  of  the  senate  of  the 
28th  of  March,  18341,  how  was  1  to  guard,  protect  and  defend  my  constitu- 
tional rights,  but  by  making  known  to  the  people  how  and  wherein  they 
have  been  violated?  If  this  was  the  only  mode  within  my  reach,  and  I 
am  acquainted  with  no  other,  it  is  manifest  that  the  circulation  of  Col. 
Benton's  speeches  was  not  only  proper,  in  itself,  but  was  demanded  by  my 
pubUc  duty  to  the  country.  .  .  .  But,  independently  of  the  special 
reason  which  existed  in  this  case,  I  hold  myself  as  clothed  legally  with  the 
privilege  of  circulating,  under  my  frank,  any  documents  or  papers  which  I 
deem  useful  to  the  country,  or  which  are  designed  to  furnish  expositions  of 
the  public  questions  which  grew  out  of  the  legislative  or  executive  pro- 
ceedings of  the  day."  A.  Jackson  to  A.  0.  P.  Nicholson,  December  18. 
1835;  ibid.,  XLIX,  p.  376. 


Jackson's  power.  16T 

become  guilty  of  the  sin  against  the  political  holy  spirit 
He,  long  the  friend  and  confidant  of  the  general,  to  whom  a 
seat  in  the  cabinet  had  been  tendered  repeatedly  and  urgently, 
was  not  only  an  opponent  of  the  expunging  resolution  —  he 
not  only  had  all  kinds  of  censure  for  the  "  reforms  "  in  rela- 
tion to  the  administration  of  government  patronage  —  he 
was  not  only  an  opponent  of  Yan  Buren,  but  he  assailed  the 
dogma  of  absolute  party  discipline,  and  set  himself  up  as 
the  presidential  candidate  of  the  dissatisfied  within  the  party. 
It  was  certainly  edifying  to  the  country  to  have  these  mon- 
strosities exhibited  in  all  their  nakedness,  and  the  hand  of 
the  president  of  the  United  States  was  not  too  good  to  tear 
the  mask  from  the  face  of  the  beast  whose  name  had  long 
been  counted  among  the  best  in  the  country.  Stupidity  or 
party  animosity  alone  could  see  anything  blameworthy 
or  dangerous  in  the  endeavor  to  employ  the  immense  power 
of  the  presidency  in  the  interest  of  party.  It  was  a  vexa- 
tious thing  to  see  that  many  old  friends  and  admirers  of  the 
general  agreed  in  this  with  the  opposition,  and  that  they  ex- 
pressed their  views  on  the  subject  openly.^  It  was  still  more 
vexatious  that  the  legislature  of  his  own  state  should  have 
answered  the  instructions  conveyed  in  this  manner  by  the 
unanimous  reelection  of  "White  to  the  senate,  and  that  Ten- 
nessee should  have  expressed  its  emphatic  agreement  with 
the  senate,  by  giving  its  vote  for  the  presidency  to  White. 
But  these  desertions  were,  after  all,  only  isolated  cases.  The 
trading  politicians  followed  even  a  hint  from  Jackson  with 
as  much  obedience  as  a  staff  of  officers  the  word  of  command 
of  their  general,  and  the  masses  cried  hurrah  as  vociferously, 
as  readily  and  as  thoughtlessly  as  ever  did  a  Russian  regi- 
ment of  the  line.  Jackson,  in  a  letter,  gave  his  highest 
sanction  to  the  project  hatched  in  the  kitchen  cabinet  of  a 

'  See  the  cutting  letter  of  J.  W.  Womack,  of  Alabama;  ibid.,  pp.  294, 
295. 


168  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

national  nominating  convention;'  party  machinery  allowed 
only  trading  politicians  to  come  to  the  surface  in  the  elec- 
tions for  delegates;  the  convention  unanimously  chose  Van 
Buren  for  its  standard  bearer;  *  the  masses  fought  the  battle 
of  the  election  with  energy  and  fidelity  to  conviction  for 
the  new  party  chief,  of  whom  they  knew  nothing,  and  who 
had  never  been  popular;^  and  the  United  States  had  obtained 
the  first  president  of  whom  they  knew  neither  why  nor  how 
he  had  become  president. 

Yan  Buren  and  his  adherents  could  not  say  enough  in 
praise  pt  the  discretion  and  modesty  with  which  he  had  kept 
himself  back  and  refused  to  obtain  votes  for  himself  by  even 

'  "  You  are  at  liberty  to  say,  on  all  occasions,  that,  regarding  the  people 
as  the  true  source  of  political  power,  I  am  always  ready  to  bow  to  their 
will  and  to  their  judgment;  that,  discarding  aU  personal  preferences,  I 
consider  the  true  policy  of  the  friends  of  republican  principles  to  send  dele- 
gates, fresh  from  the  people,  to  a  general  oonvention,  for  the  purpose  of 
selecting  candidates  for  the  presidency  and  vice-presidency;  and  that  to 
impeach  that  selection  before  it  is  made,  as  an  emanation  of  executive 
power,  is  to  assail  the  virtue  of  the  people,  and,  in  effect,  to  oppose  their 
right  to  govern."  A.  Jackson  to  Rev.  J.  Gwin,  February  23,  1835;  ibid., 
XLVIII,  p.  81. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  257.  General  Th.  Floumoy,  of  Georgia,  writes:  "  I  declare  it 
to  be  my  opinion  that  the  farce  played  off,  on  that  occasion,  is  an  insult 
upon  the  good  sense  of  the  American  people."    Ibid.,  p.  81. 

'  Brownson's  (democratic)  "  Boston  Quarterly  Review ' '  wrote  in  January, 
1841  (pp.  70,  71):  "Mr.  Van  Buren  has  been  defeated;  but  he  is  much 
dearer  to  the  American  people  than  he  was  when  elected  president.  He 
has  failed  in  his  reflection,  not  because  he  has  lost  in  popularity,  but  be- 
cause he  never  was  the  choice  of  the  American  people.  The  people  never 
willed  his  elevation  to  the  presidential  chair.  He  was  elevated  to  that 
chair,  not  by  his  own  popularity,  but  by  the  popularity  of  his  predecessor, 
and  by  the  management  of  party  leaders.  Since  he  became  president,  he 
has  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  gained  a  place  in  the  affections  of  the 
American  people,  and  he  retires  from  the  presidency  with  an  enviable  pop- 
ularity and  an  honest  fame  which  wiU  endure."  We  shall  see  how  far  re- 
moved Brownson  was  later  from  allowing  the  assertions  of  this  last  sen- 
tence to  be  true. 


VAU   BUBBN  AND  THE  OAG-BILL.  169 

a  word.  There  was  no  need  of  bis  doing  so.  The  machin- 
ery of  the  party,  once  it  was  put  rightly  in  motion,  and  his 
great  protector,  took  care  of  the  business  alone.  Van  Buren 
bad  calculated  correctly,  and  entirely  so,  when  he  thought 
that  he  could  best  serve  his  own  cause  by  withdrawing  tem- 
porarily in  1831  from  all  prominent  or  direct  participation 
in  party  politics.  The  vice-presidency  was  much  better 
adapted  to  enable  him  to  pursue  this  course  than  the  minis- 
terial position  in  London.  His  seclusion  in  the  presidency 
of  the  senate  was  naturally  much  more  noticeable,  and  yet 
it  did  not  compel  him  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  con- 
troversies on  the  questions  of  the  day.  This  was  not,  in- 
deed, entirely  so.  Accident,  as  well  as  the  ill  will  of  his 
opponents,  might  compel  him  to  show  his  true  colors,  and 
he  was,  in  fact,  forced  to  do  this  on  the  most  important 
question  of  all.  Calhoun's  bill  relating  to  seditious  publi- 
cations afforded  an  excellent  opportunity  to  discover,  from 
their  own  confessions,  the  attitude  of  the  northern  senators 
towards  the  slavery  question.  Calhoun  received  Van  Buren's 
confession  on  this  point  by  so  arranging  it  that  there  was  an 
equal  number  of  votes  on  the  question  whether  the  bill 
should  be  engrossed.  He  impatiently  called  for  the  vice- 
president,  who  was  not  at  the  moment  in  his  place,  but  who 
immediately  responded  to  the  call,  and  without  any  hesita- 
tion voted  his  decisive  aye.* 

The  test  was  scarcely  necessary.  Van  Buren  had  already 
taken  care  to  have  the  south  know  that  it  might  expect  the 
best  from  him.  In  a  letter  of  the  10th  of  September,  1835, 
intended  for  publication,  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  assur- 
ances in  general  terms,  but  he  called  special  attention  to  the 
fact  that  he  entirely  approved  the  severe  resolutions  of  a 
meeting  held  in  Albany,  against  the  abolitionists,  and  that 
he  was  one  of  those  who  had  advised  the  callinor  of  the  meet- 
'  Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  587. 


170  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ing  in  the  first  instance.^  But  the  south  could  not  be  easily 
satisfied  in  this  matter.  Moreover,  there  came  from  North 
Carolina  to  Van  Buren  the  direct  question:  what  he  thought 
of  the  powers  of  congress  in  relation  to  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia.  His  answer  proved  that  he,  to  the  fullest 
extent,  deserved  the  name  of  "a  northern  man  with  southern 
principles."  What  he  said,  many  of  the  most  estimable 
people  in  the  north  believed  with  him;  but  the  manner  in 
•which  he  said  it  justified  every  word  of  Adams'  judgment, 
that  his  "principles"  were  "all  subordinate  to  his  ambi- 
tion,"^ He  thus  begins  to  state  his  position  on  the  slavery 
question  in  general.  He  was  not,  indeed,  questioned  on  this 
point,  but  his  response  was  a  sugar-coating  to  that  which 
could  not  be  acceptable  to  the  interrogators  in  the  real 
answer;  for  to  satisfy  them  entirely  was  more  than  he  could 
do.  He  acknowledges  that  he  cannot  ignore  the  constitu- 
tional powers  of  congress,  but  he  bends  even  to  the  earth 
with  sorrow  because  he  cannot.  He  hastens  to  give  assur- 
ance that  his  desire  to  be  able  to  give  another  interpretation 
to  the  clause  of  the  constitution  may  yet  be  fulfilled.  And 
relying  on  tliis  hope  the  south  could  certainly  venture  it 
with  him,  since  he  was  fortunate  enough  to  be  acquainted 
with  other  reasons  which  were  just  as  forcible  as  the  want 
.  of  constitutional   power.     He  therefore  gave  his   solemn 

*  Niles,  XLIX,  p.  93.  In  the  resolutions  we  find,  among  other  things, 
the  following:  "  That  whilst  they  would  maintain  inviolate  the  liberty  of 
speech  and  the  freedom  of  the  press,  they  considered  discussions  which, 
from  their  nature,  tend  to  inflame  the  pubUc  mind  and  put  in  jeopardy  the 
lives  and  property  of  their  fellow  citizens,  at  war  with  every  rule  of  moral 
duty,  and  every  suggestion  of  humanity,  and  would  be  constrained,  more- 
over, to  regard  those  who,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  their  pernicious  tend- 
ency, persist  in  carrying  them,  as  disloyal  to  the  Union." 

•  "  His  principles  are  all  subordinate  to  his  ambition,  and  he  will  always 
be  of  that  doctrine  upon  which  he  shall  see  his  way  dear  to  rise."  Mem. 
of  J.  Q.  Adams,  VIII,  p.  129. 


VAN  BUBEN  AND  SLAVEET.  171 

assurance  that  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  congress  to  ex- 
ercise this,  its  constitutional  power,  would  find  in  him  "  an 
inflexible  and  uncompromising  opponent."^ 

The  south  professed  to  be  satisfied  with  this  declaration, 
but  the  north  had  received  a  new  proof  that  it  was  governed, 
not  bj  the  black  slaves  of  the  south,  but  by  its  own  white 
slaves.  Henceforth,  to  the  extent  that  it  depended  on  the 
south,  no  one  could  become  president  of  the  Union,  unless 
he  had  first  permitted  himself  to  be  bound  hand  and  foot  so 
far  as  the  slavery  question  went.  The  incubus  of  "the 
wishes  of  the  slave-holding  states,"  from  this  time  forward, 
weighed  on  the  constitution  like  a  mountain.  Jackson  had 
repeatedly  and  grossly  violated  the  spirit  of  the  constitution, 
but  he  was  always  honestly  convinced  that  he  was  doing 
nothing  but  restoring  its  absolute  sovereignty.  Yan  Buren 
now  recommended  himself  to  the  country  by  the  assurance 
that  he  would  use  the  power  granted  him  to  maintain  and 
enforce  the  constitution,  to  make  that  constitution  a  dead 
letter  in  a  question  of  the  highest  importance.  This  was  the 
meaning  of  the  declaration  that  he  would,  under  all  circum- 
stances, oppose  the  exercise  of  a  right  which,  in  his  own 

■  "  As  anxious  as  you  can  possibly  be,  to  arrest  all  agitation  ui)on  this 
disturbing  subject,  I  have  considered  the  question  you  have  propounded  to 
me,  with  a  sincere  desire  to  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  subject,  in 
respect  to  the  District  of  Columbia,  can  be  safely  placed  on  the  same  ground 
on  which  it  stands  in  regard  to  the  states,  viz. :  the  want  of  constitutional 
power  in  congress  to  interfere  in  the  matter.  I  owe  it,  however,  to  candor, 
to  say  to  you,  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  satisfy  myself  that  the  grant  to 
congress,  in  the  constitution,  of  the  power  of  '  exclusive  legislation  in  all 
cases  whatsoever '  over  the  federal  district,  does  not  confer  on  that  body  the 
same  authority  over  the  subject  that  would  otherwise  have  been  possessed 
by  the  states  of  Maryland  and  Virgina,  or  that  congress  might  not,  in 
virtue  thereof,  take  such  steps  upon  the  subject  in  this  district,  as  those 
states  might  themselves  take  within  their  own  limits,  and  consistently  with 
their  rights  of  sovereignty. 

"  Thus  viewing  the  matter,  I  would  not,  from  the  lights  now  before  me, 


173  Jackson's  administkation — annexation  of  texas. 

opinion,  was  incoutestably  granted  bj  the  constitution  to 
congress.  But  if  the  president  were  justified  in  thus  virtually 
correcting  the  constitution  in  one  instance,  why  not  in  all 
others?  The  two  rivals,  Calhoun  and  Yan  Buren,  the  leader 
of  the  extreme  slavocracj  and  the  leader  of  the  professional 
politicians  of  the  northern  states,  here  met;  hand  in  hand 
they  entered  the  service  of  the  slave-holding  interests,  pass- 
ing over  formal  right  to  the  ground  of  naked  facts.  And 
the  majority  of  the  people  acquiesced  in  their  action  by 
electing  Yan  Buren  president. 

"  Political  management "  ^  was  in  a  condition  to  place  Yan 
Buren  in  the  Wliite  House,  but  to  make  his  bed  there  one  of 
down  it  could  not  do.  Fate  seemed  only  to  have  waited  for 
the  moment  of  his  triumph  with  the  long  impending  commer- 
cial crash.  His  opponents  did  their  best  to  make  capital  out  of 
this  adventitious  circumstance.  The  whole  blame  was  cast 
on  Jackson's  wild,  lawless  treatment  of  the  most  difficult  and 
delicate  economic  problems,  and  Yan  Buren  was,  in  this  re- 
spect, treated  as  Jackson's  alter  ego ;  and  this,  for  two  reasons : 
because  he  endeavored  to  turn  it  to  advantage  that  he  had  been 
chosen  successor  by  his  predecessor,  and  that  he  wished  to 
serve  as  an  "  instrument "  to  carry  out  the  policy  of  the  lat- 

feel  myself  safe  in  pronouncing  that  congress  does  not  possess  the  power 
of  interfering  with,  or  abolishing,  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  But 
whilst  such  are  my  present  impressions  upon  the  abstract  question  of  the 
legal  power  of  congress  —  impressions  which  I  shall  at  all  times  be  not  only 
ready,  but  disposed,  to  surrender  upon  conviction  of  error — I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  give  it  to  you  as  my  dehberate  and  well  considered  opinion,  that 
there  are  objections  to  the  exercise  of  this  power,  against  the  wishes  of  the 
slave-holding  states,  as  imperative  in  their  natm-e  and  obligations  in  regu- 
lating the  conduct  of  public  men,  as  the  most  palpable  want  of  constitu- 
tional power  would  be.  ...  I  must  go  into  the  presidential  chair  the 
inflexible  and  imcompromising  opponent  of  any  attempt  on  the  part  of 
congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  against  the  wishes 
of  the  slave-holding  states."  Niles,  L,  pp.  126,  127. 
'  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  July,  1844,  p.  4. 


ENGLISH   CAPITAL.  173 

ter.  "With  the  presidency,  Yan  Bnren  had,  in  the  eyes  of 
tlie  people,  inherited  also  the  responsibility  of  Jackson's 
policy. 

It  is  nnqnestionable  that  Jackson's  inconsiderate  inter- 
meddling with  economic  interests  had  contributed  mnch  to 
bring  on  the  crisis  of  1837.  But  as  the  catastrophe  extended 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  its  canse-s  were 
not  to  be  sought  for  there  alone,  and  in  so  far  as  they  were 
to  be  found  there,  the  whole  people  shared  the  blame.^ 

The  great  growth  of  its  industries  through  the  development 
of  its  machinery  system  during  the  past  thirty  years  of  this 
century,  was  coincident  in  England  with  a  series  of  good 
harvests  and  a  very  large  extension  of  its  banking  business. 
Food  was  cheap,  while  the  price  of  industrial  products  and 
the  demand  for  raw  material  rose,  and  the  facility  of  obtaiii- 
ing  credit  opened  a  boundless  field  to  speculation.  A  real 
deluge  of  English  capital  overflowed  the  whole  earth.  The 
United  States,  especially,  were  preferred.  Here  the  readi- 
ness of  capitalists  was  met  by  the  most  energetic  and  most 
sanguine  spirit  of  enterprise,  and  the  natural  wealth  of  the 
country  which  was  to  be  unlocked  was  unlimited.  Neither 
borrowers  nor  lenders  gave  any  thought  to  the  fact  that  the 
remunerative  development  of  this  national  wealth  had  its 
limits  in  the  possibility  of  turning  it  to  account,  i.  e.,  in  the 
wants  for  the  time  being  of  the  home  and  of  the  foreign 
market.  Not  only  individuals  leaped  exultingly  into  the 
whirlpool  of  speculation,  but  the  states  themselves  led  tlie 
dance '  in  the  building  of  railroads  and  the  starting  of  all 

'  This  fact  is  to-day  universally  recognized,  but  at  first  there  were  only 
very  few  individuals  who  conceded  it,  and  pointed  out  that  the  recognition 
of  it  was  a  condition  precedent  of  a  change  for  the  better.  See,  for  in- 
stance, the  letter  of  J.  A.  Hamilton  to  N.  Biddle,  Niles,  LIT,  pp.  312-315. 

*  In  reference  to  the  railroads,  W.  G.  Sumner  says :  "  Railroad  building 
was  not  a  subject  of  unhealthy  speculation,  and  the  crisis  did  not,  as  it  ap- 
pears, stop  an  tumatoral  development  in  this  respect,  but  rather  checked 


174:  JAOKSON's  ADMINISTEATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

other  kinds  of  "  internal  improvements."  Like  mushrooms 
after  a  rainy  night,  banks  sprouted  up  out  of  the  ground. 
Thej  scarcely  required  any  other  security  now  for  the  giving 
of  credit,  than  the  assurance  that  the  money  loaned  would 
be  invested  in  a  speculation  of  some  kind. 

The  luxuriant  growth  of  the  bank  business,  which  was  en- 
tirely out  of  proportion  to  the  real  wants  of  the  country,  and 
the  resulting  competition  of  the  givers  of  a  credit  which  was 
based  in  great  part  only  on  fictitious  values,  received  a  further 
and  a  powerful  impulse  from  Jackson's  successful  war  against 
the  United  States  bank.  A  large  number  of  small  banks 
were  called  into  being  by  reason  of  the  withdrawal  of  the 
United  States  deposits  from  the  former.  Only  the  most 
rigid  fulfillment  of  the  obligation  to  redeem  their  notes  on 
presentation  in  cash  money,  could  have  afforded  sufficient 
security  that  these  small,  artificial  creations  would  not  be 
most  wretchedly  administered  and  mismanaged.  The  ad- 
ministration had  neglected  to  provide  for  this,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  had  expressly  counseled  the  banks  of  deposit 
to  use  the  money  of  the  government  to  stimulate  business, 
and  especially  foreign  trade.*     The  amount  of  these  sums 

a  species  of  enterprise  which,  without  it,  might  have  gone  on  to  produce 
great  and  healthy  prosperity."  Confirmatory  of  the  correctness  of  this 
view  is  the  fact,  that  during  the  four  years  after  the  crisis,  1838-1841, 
2,038  Enghsh  miles  were  finished,  while  during  the  four  years  previous, 
1,117  miles  had  been  built.  A  History  of  American  Currency,  pp.  117, 
118. 

•  In  the  Treasury  Circular  of  September  26,  1833,  we  read:  "The  de- 
posits of  public  money  will  enable  you  to  afibrd  increased  facilities  to 
commerce,  and  to  extend  your  accommodation  to  individuals;  and  as  the 
duties  which  are  payable  to  the  government  arise  from  the  business  and 
enterprise  of  the  merchants  engaged  in  foreign  trade,  it  is  but  reasonable 
that  they  should  be  preferred  in  the  additional  accommodation  which  the 
public  deposits  will  enable  your  institution  to  give,  whenever  it  can  be 
done  without  ijg'ustice  to  the  claims  of  other  classes  of  the  community.'' 
Webst's  Works,  IV,  pp.  443,  444.     When  Webster,  in  1838,  reproached 


NUMBER  OF  BAITKS.  175 

was  large  enough  to  act  as  an  ominous  stimnlant  on  the 
already  feverish  disposition  towards  speculation.  They 
were,  on  the  1st  of  January,  1834,  $11,702,905,  and  kept 
falling  to  the  Slst  of  December,  when  they  were  $8,695,- 
981,^  and  on  the  31st  of  March,  1836,  the  government 
had  $31,805,155  outstanding,  divided  among  forty  banks.' 
The  aggregate  number  of  banks  had  increased  during  the 
last  seven  years  from  330  to  634,  and  their  capital  had 
just  doubled  ($145,000,000  and  $290,700,000),  while  the 
amount  of  tlieir  advances  had  almost  trebled  ($200,400,- 
000  and  $525,100,000);  their  cash  stores,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  increased  only  from  $22,100,000  to  $37,900,000;'  and 

the  administration  with  this,  he  had  forgotten  what  he  said  in  1836.  In  a 
speech  of  the  31st  of  May,  1836,  he  complains:  "I  am  of  opinion  that 
the  first  step  is  to  increase  their  [the  deposit  banks]  numbers.  At  present, 
their  number,  especially  in  the  large  cities,  is  too  small.  They  have  too 
large  sums  in  deposit,  in  proportion  to  their  capital  and  their  legal  linuts 
of  discount.  By  this  means,  the  pubUc  money  is  locked  up.  It  is  hoarded. 
It  is  withdrawn,  to  a  considerable  extent,  from  the  general  mass  of  com- 
mercial means,  and  is  suffered  to  accumulate,  with  no  possible  benefit  to 
government,  and  with  great  inconvenience  and  injury  to  the  general  busi- 
ness of  the  country.  On  this  point  there  seems  Uttle  diversity  of  opinion. 
AU  appear  to  agree  that  the  number  of  deposit  banks  should  be  so  far  in- 
creased that  each  may  regard  that  portion  of  the  public  treasure  which  it 
may  receive  as  an  increase  of  its  effective  dei)Osits,  to  be  used,  like  other 
moneys  in  deposit,  as  a  basis  of  discount,  to  a  just  and  proper  extent." 
Works,  IV,  p.  253. 

'Calh.'8  Works,  V,  p.  154. 

•Report  of  Woodbury,  secretary  of  the  treasury,  AprQ  18, 1836,  Niles,  L, 
p.  153.  According  to  the  treasurer's  report  of  August  28, 1837,  that  is,  three 
and  one-half  months  after  the  crash,  the  deposits  amounted  to  $13,255,916, 
on  which  drafts  to  the  amount  of  $3,877,468  were  already  drawn,  but 
not  paid.  This  sum  was  divided  among  85  banks,  of  which  several  had  less 
than  flOO,  and  one  only  $20.    Ibid.  LIII,  p.  85. 

•Tliese  numbers  are  taken  from  W.  G.  Sumner,  A  History  of  American 
Currency,  p.  123,  who  in  turn  took  them  from  Condy  Raguet's  Currency 
and  Banking.  I  have  not  been  able  to  procure  this  latter  book,  and  I  can- 
not therefore  eay  whether  Raguet  obtained  the  numbers  from  ofiidai 


176  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

in  addition  to  all  this,  a  foolish  experiment  in  the  matter  of 
the  currency,  which  produced  a  complete  revolution  in  hard 
money,  found  favor  in  1834  Such  was  the  old  standard 
that  it  caused  the  gold  to  leave  the  country  as  fast  as  it  was 
coined  at  the  mint.^  On  the  29th  of  March,  1834,  Benton 
made  a  motion  in  the  senate  for  the  appointment  of  a  com- 
mittee to  discover  what  changes  it  was  necessary  to  make  in 
the  existing  gold  standard  in  order  to  remove  this  eviL^ 
The  proposition  met  with  great  favor,  and  it  was  resolved 
by  both  houses,  and  by  a  large  majority,  to  change  the  rates 
between  the  values  of  gold  and  silver  from  15:1  to  16:1. 
Although  it  was  universally  conceded  thkt  this  ratio  was  too 
large,  yet  the  bill,  with  this  clause,  was  passed  in  the  senate 

sources.  The  accounts  to  whicli  I  have  been  able  to  have  access  from  con- 
temporary non-official  sources,  depart  largely  from  them,  and  differ  greatly 
from  one  another.  In  the  letter  of  J.  Hamilton  to  N.  Biddle,  already 
cited,  we  read,  for  instance:  "  According  to  the  most  authentic  returns  we 
have  seen  within  the  last  seven  years,  357  new  banks  have  been  created 
in  the  United  States,  besides  146  branches,  which,  added  to  those  previ- 
ously in  existence,  made  a  total  of  667  banks.  This  produced  a  correspond- 
ing augmentation  of  the  banking  capital  of  the  countiy  of  $179,000,000 
and  an  increase  in  the  circulation  of  paper  money  amounting  to  $125,000,- 
000."  Niles,  LII,  p.  313.  The  statements  in  Calhoun,  "Works,  III,  p. 
108,  and  Webster,  Works,  IV,  p.  281,  are  too  general  to  have  any  value. 
In  reference  to  the  ratio  of  gold  and  silver  money  to  the  bank  notes,  Cal- 
houn, speaking  of  the  year  1834,  says:  "There  was  then  not  more  than 
one  dollar  in  specie,  on  an  average,  in  the  banks,  including  the  United 
States  Bank  and  all,  for  ten  of  bank  notes  in  circulation,  and  not  more 
than  one  in  eleven  compared  to  the  habiUties  of  the  banks."  Works,  III, 
pp.  255,  256.  A  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasiuy  makes  the  following 
estimate  for  December,  1836:  in  active  circulation,  $28,000,000  in  gold  and 
silver,  and  $120,000,000  in  bank  notes;  besides  which,  $45,000,000  in  specie 
in  the  banks.    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1268. 

'  "  Of  all  the  gold  which  came  in  and  was  coined,  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  said,  1836,  that  not  over  $1,000,000  remained  in  the  country  in 
1834,  and  of  that  small  amount  only  a  very  diminutive  portion  was  in  active 
circulation."    W.  6.  Sumner,  1.  c,  p.  108. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  303. 


CONTEACnON   OF   OKEDIT.  177 

by  tliirtj-five  against  seven  votes,*  and  in  the  houae  of  rep- 
resentatives by  one  hundred  and  forty-five. against  thirty-six.' 
On  the  28th  of  July  the  bill  received  the  president's  signa- 
ture, and  on  the  Slst  of  July  the  law  went  into  force.' 
From  this  moment  the  silver  coins  disappeared  as  rapidly 
from  circulation  as  the  gold  coins  had  previously,  and  every 
creditor  lost  2j\  per  cent  of  his  claims  against  his  debtor.* 

The  compromise  tariff  of  1833  had  preceded  the  foolish 
expenment  with  the  currency;  and  its  provisions,  confused 
and  destitute  of  all  principle  as  they  were,  had  no  merit,  ex- 
cept that  they  indefinitely  postponed  the  solution  of  the 
states-  rights  question.  The  "  horizontal  rate  "  of  twenty  per 
cent,  to  which  the  duties  until  1842  were  to  be  kept  down,  left 
a  whole  series  of  specific  duties  untouched,  largely  increased 
the  price  of  some  important  articles,  as,  for  instance,  of  cheap 
woolen  stuffs,  considerably  decreased  the  custom  receipts, 
wh;le  no  other  sources  of  income  were  opened  to  the  govern- 
ment, and,  with  the  stability  of  the  duties,  took  away  the 
corner  stone  of  a  healthy  development  of  trade. 

The  compromise  tariff  had  not  yet  gone  into  force  when 
the  United  States  Bank  began  to  contract  its  giving  of  credit 
The  withdrawal  of  the  deposits  served  as  a  pretext  for  this. 
The  most  essential,  if  not  the  only  reason,  was  evidently  the 
hope  of  exerting  a  pressure  on  congress  in  the  matter  of  the 
renewal  of  the  charter.  The  effect  of  this  sudden  change  of 
its  politics  was  severe  enough.  It  followed  the  so-called 
bank  panic  of  1834.  Congress  was  flooded  with  representa- 
tions and  complaints.  The  debates  were  carried  on  in  such 
a  tone  that  it  might  have  been  inferred  th^t  the  whole  future 

•  Ibid.,  p.  515.  An  amendment  in  accordance  with  which  the  real  value 
relation  was  to  be  maintained  in  the  standard  also,  had,  however,  received 
at  least  52  votes  in  the  hoase. 

» Stat  at  L.,  n,  pp.  699,  700. 

»W.  G.  Sumner,  1.  c,  p.  HI. 

« Ibid.,  p.  383. 
12 


178  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

of  the  country  was  in  jeopardy;  but  the  president  and  the 
administration  party  became  firmer  in  their  resolve,  in  pro- 
portion as  the  attacks  of  the  opposition  grew  more  violent. 
The  resolution  of  the  house  of  representatives,  adopted  by  a 
large  majority,  which  ultimately  was  the  death  sentence  of 
the  bank,  produced  another  revolution  in  its  politics.  Its 
contraction  had  finally  operated  as  a  stimulus  to  the  activity 
of  the  smaller  banks,  and  now  that  its  fate  was  sealed,  it  be- 
gan to  follow  the  current  generated  at  least  in  part  by  itself, 
and  against  its  will. 

Thus  it  happened  that  what,  under  other  circumstances, 
would  have  operated  as  a  powerful  damper  on  the  spirit  of 
enterprise,  served,  by  reason  of  the  peculiar  amalgamation  of 
heterogeneous  causes,  to  heighten  the  fever  of  speculation.  It. 
degenerated  into  a  genuine  epidemic,  which  raged  even  in 
those  strata  of  society  whose  conservative  inertia  is  prover- 
bial. Every  one  wished  to  grow  rich  in  a  night,  and  it  was 
a  matter  of  course,  that  to  become  so,  all  that  was  needed 
was  to  engage  in  some  kind  of  speculation.  In  the  com- 
mercial cities,  it  seemed  as  if  pieces  of  land  were  going  to 
become  as  current  as  bank  notes  or  coin.  !No  one  paid; 
every  one  bought  to  sell  again  next  day  with  advantage,  and 
prices  were  quoted  which  had  no  basis  in  real  values.  In 
New  York,  the  assessors  had  estimated  the  city  real  estate  in 
1832,  at  $104,042,405;  in  1836,  it  was  appraised  by  the  ward 
assessors  at  $231,258,964,  and  this  appraisal  was  corrected 
by  the  city  assessors  in  accordance  with  the  selling  prices 
last  quoted,  by  an  addition  of  $21,942,227,  so  that  the  taxes 
were  levied  on  a  valuation  of  $253,201,191.^     The  rise  in 

'  Niles,  LI,  p.  167.  Grosvenor  gives  $309,500,920  as  the  valuation  of  all 
taxable  property  (Does  Protection  Protect?  p.  37).  According  to  the  list 
taken  from  the  "  New  York  Daily  Advertiser"  by  NUes,  the  movable 
property  was  estimated  at  $74,787,589,  so  that  the  aggregate  amount  was 
$327,988,780. 


THE   PUBLIC   LAin)8.  179 

Mobile  was  incomparably  greater.  There  the  real  estate  was 
estimated  in  1831,  at  $1,294,810,  and  in  1837,  at  $27,482,961. 
After  this  it  declined  steadily  for  ten  years,  until  the  ap- 
praisal in  1846  was  only  $8,638,250.^ 

These  two  examples  are  not  arbitrarily  chosen.  There 
were  deeper  causes  underlying  the  immense  difference  in  the 
degree  of  the  excitement,  which  point  to  the  sorest  spot  in 
the  economic  life  of  the  United  States  during  the  last  seven 
years.  The  completion  of  the  Erie  canal,  in  the  year  1825, 
the  growth  of  steam  navigation  on  the  inland  waters,'  and 
the  rapidly  growing  stream  of  emigration,  had  considerably 
increased  the  value  of  land  in  the  ever  receding  "far  west." 
The  price  of  public  lands  up  to  1820  had  been  $2  an  acre. 

'  Grosvenor,  1.  c. 

*The  tonnage  of  the  steamboats  on  the  western  rivers  rose,  in  the  years 
1830-37,  from  63,053  to  253,661.    Grosvenor,  1.  c,  p.  35.    In  a  report  of 
the  committee  of  the  senate  on  trade  and  commerce,  of  February  9, 1843, 
I  find  the  following  interesting  data  concerning  the  development  of  ship- 
ping on  the  Mississippi,  Missouri  and  Ohio:     "  Before  the  introduction  of 
steam  navigation  (which  dates  upon  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  aboat 
1817),  the  trade  of  the  upper  Mississippi  and  Missouri  scarcely  existed,  and 
the  whole  upward  commerce  of  New  Orleans  was  conveyed  in  about  twenty 
barges,  carrying  each  about  one  hundred  tons,  and  making  but  one  trip  a 
year;  so  that  each  navigation  was,  in  those  days,  about  equivalent  to  what 
an  East  India  or  a  China  voyage  now  is.     On  the  upper  Ohio,  about  150 
keel  boats  were  employed,  each  of  the  burden  of  about  30  tons,  and  mak- 
ing the  trip  to  and  fro,  of  Pittsburg  and  Louisville,  about  three  times  a 
year.    The  entire  tonnage  of  the  boats  moving  in  the  Ohio  and  lower  Mis- 
sissippi was  then  about  6,500  tons. .  In  1834,  the  steam  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi  had  risen  to  230  boats,  and  a  tonnage  of  39,000,  while  about 
90,000  persons  weie  estimated  to  be  employed  in  the  trade,  either  as  crews, 
builders,  wood-cutters  or  loaders  of  the  vessels.    In  1842,  the  navigation 
was  as  follows:    There  were  450  steamers,  averaging  each  200  tons,  and 
making  an  aggregate  tonnage  of  90,000;  so  that  it  has  a  good  deal  more 
than  doubled  in  eight  years.    Valued  at  $80  the  ton,  they  cost  above 
$7,000(000,  and  are  navigated  by  nearly  16,000  persons,  at  thirty-five  to 
each.    Besides  these  steamers,  there  are  about  4,000  flat  boats,  which  cost 
each  $105,  are  managed  by  five  hands  apiece  (or  20,000  persons),  and 
make  an  annual  expense  of  $1,380,000.    The  estimated  annual  expense  of 


180  Jackson's  administeation"  — aitniexation  of  texas. 

A  law  of  the  24:th  of  April  of  tbat  year  put  it  down  to  $1.25.* 
In  1818,  public  lands  to  the  amount,  in  round  numbers,  of 
$2,600,000,  were  sold,  and  in  1819,  to  the  amount  of 
$3,270,000;  but  during  the  ten  following  years,  the  amount 
of  receipts  from  this  source  remained  below  two  millions,  and 
in  1823  and  1824  it  did  not  reach  even  one  million.  Com- 
mencing with  1829-30,  we  find  a  great,  if  not  an  entirely 

the  steam  navigation,  including  15  per  cent,  for  insurance  and  20  per  cent, 
for  wear  and  tear,  is  $13,618,000.    If  in  1834  they  employed  an  aggregate 
of  90,000  persons,  they  must  occupy  now  at  least  180,000.     .     .     .     But 
at  twenty  (trips)  each  (steamboat),  and  carrying  burdens  far  beyond  their 
mere  admeasurement  of  tonnage,  their  collective  annual  freight  would  be 
1,800,000  tons,  to  which,  if  that  of  4,000  flat  boats  (each  75  tons)  be  added, 
we  have  a  total  freight  for  the  entire  annual  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
of  about  2,000,000  of  tons.    .    .     .    The  downward  trade  may  thus  be 
stated  at  f  120,000,0(K);  the  upward,  or  return  trade  of  foreign  goods,  or 
of  those  brought  up  the  river  from  other  parts  of  the  Union,  is  reckoned  at 
about  $100,000,000.    Thus  the  entire  amount  of  commodities  conveyed 
uiKjn  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  does  not,  upon  the  best  estimates,  fall 
short  of  $220,000,000  annually;  which  is  about  $30,000,000  less  than  the 
entire  value  of  the  foreign  trade  of  the  United  States,  exports  and  imports, 
in  1841.''    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  124.    Of  the  commerce  on  the  great  interior 
lakes,  an  almost  simultaneous  report  (February,  1843)  sajrs:    "In  1833, 
the  first  steamboat  appeared  ofiF  the  shore  where  Chicago  now  is;  as  a  town 
it  did  not  then  exist.    In  1839,  a  regular  line  of  eight  splendid  steamers 
of  the  largest  class  had  been  established,  to  run  from  Buffalo  and  Detroit 
to  Chicago.    ...    In  1841,  there  were  upon  Lake  Erie  and  the  upper 
lakes  more  than  fifty  steamers,  constructed  at  a  cost  of  between  two  and 
three  millions  of  dollars.     .    .    .    During  the  same  year,  the  probable 
amount  of  capital  invested  in  sail  vessels,  on  the  same  lakes,  was  estimated 
at  $1,250,000,  and  their  earnings  at  the  same  season  are  estimated  at 
$750,000.    If  to  these  earnings  there  be  added  $150,000  for  freight  and 
toll  upon  United  States  products,  passed  during  the  same  year  through 
the  Welland  canal,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  product  of  the  navigation  and 
commercial  business  upon  these  lakes  amounts  annually  to  the  large  sum 
of  $1,700,000.    ...    Of  the  actual  condition  of  commerce  of  the  lakes. 
some  adequate  conception,  it  is  believed,  can  be  form'^d.    The  secretary  of 
war  estimates  its  annual  value  at  a  sum  exceeding  twenty-five  million 
dollats."    Ibid.,  pp.  125, 126. 
» Stat,  at  L.,  Ill,  p.  566. 


SALE  OF  PUBLIC  LANDS.  181 

steady  rise.  In  1834,  nearly  $5,000,000  worth  was  sold; 
and  now  speculation  in  public  lands  began  to  rage.  Jackson 
had,  in  his  annual  message  of  December  4,  1832,  recom- 
mended congress,  as  soon  as  practicable,  not  to  treat  them 
any  longer  as  a  source  of  income.^  Spite  of  this,  however, 
he,  in  his  message  of  December  2, 1835,  thought  well  to  con- 
gratulate the  country  heartily,  and  without  any  qualifying 
remark,  on  the  excellent  sale  of  the  public  lands.  He  was 
ingenuous  enough  to  see  still  in  this  only  a  proof  of  the 
prosperity  of  agriculture.'^  A  moment's  thought  would  have 
convinced  him  that  an  increase  from  $4,800,000  to  $11,000,- 
000,  or  rather  $14,700,000,'  within  one  year,  could  not  cor- 
respond with  the  real  wants  of  the  country.  When,  in  the 
following  year,  the  proceeds  increased  to  $24,800,000,*  his 

'  StatesuL's  Man..  II,  p.  884, 

*  "  Among  the  evidence  of  the  increasing  prosperity  of  the  country,  not 
the  least  gratifying  is  that  afforded  by  the  receipts  from  the  sales  of  the 
pabUc  lands,  which  amount,  in  the  present  year,  to  the  unexpected  sum  of 
eleven  millions  of  dollars.  This  circumstance  attests  the  rapidity  with 
which  agriculture,  the  first  and  most  important  occupation  of  man,  ad- 
vances, and  contributes  to  the  wealth  and  power  of  our  extended  territory. 
Being  stUl  of  the  opinion  that  it  is  our  best  pohcy,  as  far  as  we  can,  con- 
sistently with  the  obligations  under  which  those  lands  were  ceded  to  the 
United  States,  to  promote  their  speedy  settlement,  I  beg  leave  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  present  congress  to  the  suggestions  I  have  offered  respect- 
ing it,  in  my  former  messages."  Ibid.,  II,  p.  1007.  The  last  sentence 
suggests  the  idea  that  about  this  time  he  entertained  the  wish  to  give  tiie 
business  a  still  more  powerful  impetus  by  lowering  the  price  still  mors. 
In  the  statement  of  his  reasons  for  the  veto  which  he  had  put  on  the  land 
bill,  on  the  3d  of  December,  1833,  we  read:  "  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  is  the 
real  interest  of  each  and  all  the  states  in  the  Union,  and  paildcularly  of 
the  new  states,  that  these  lands  shall  be  reduced  and  graduated."  Ibid., 
II,  p.  948. 

'  The  exact  figures  are  to  be  foimd  in  Grosvenor,  p.  36,  following  a  re- 
port of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  of  1868.  The  figures  in  Clay,  Speeches, 
II,  p.  288,  are  correct,  but  very  incomplete. 

*The  secretary  of  the  treasury  had  calculated  on  only  four  million. 
Webst's  Works,  IV,  p.  261. 


182  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

eyes,  and  the  eyes  of  all  others  who  had  shared  his  illusion, 
were  opened.  Deception  as  to  the  real  state  of  the  case 
would,  from  the  fii'st,  even,  not  have  been  possible  for  a  mo- 
ment, if  it  had  been  only  more  clearly  recognized  that  busi- 
ness generally  had  risen  on  Icarian  wings  from  the  solid 
foundation  of  facts.  That  speculation  threw  itself  with 
peculiar  intensity  on  the  public  lauds,  was  owing  to  the 
nature  of  the  given  circumstances.  Apparently,  it  bore,  more 
than  any  other  kind  of  speculation,  the  character  of  a  solid 
investment  of  capital;  for  land  was,  and  remained,  a  tangible 
object,  and  not  simply  a  sign  of  value,  like  bank  stock,  which 
might  be  turned  into  a  piece  of  waste  paper  in  a  night. 
Neither  did  it,  like  the  products  of  industry,  lose,  in  course 
of  time,  the  qualities  on  which  its  capacity  of  being  realized 
upon  depended.  That  its  value  would  some  time  be  much 
greater  than  the  price  now  paid  for  it,  it  was  impossible  to 
doubt.  The  mistake  in  the  calculation  of  the  speculators 
was,  that  they  thought  they  would  be  able  to  sell  it  with  ad- 
vantage the  day  after  they  had  bought  it,  whereas,  from  the 
very  fact  that  speculation  had  obtained  control  of  it,  it  would 
necessarily  soon  become  unsalable  for  a  long  time.^  Be- 
sides, the  supply  of  the  government  was  unlimited,  and  the 
price  so  low  that  it  was  possible  to  engage  in  very  large  spec- 
ulations with  comparatively  small  means;  but  it  is  to  be 

*  "  The  honorable  chairman  tells  us  that  the  amount  of  land  required  for 
fair  and  honest  settlement,  by  the  progress  of  the  country,  is  five  milliona 
of  acres  annually,  and  that  the  amount  taken  by  speculation  last  year  was 
thirty  millions.  If  this  be  so,  then  there  is  already  in  the  hands  of  specu- 
lators a  six  years'  supply.  Should  all  the  land  oflSces  be  closed  to-morrow, 
the  amount  these  speculators  hold  would  not  be  absorbed  by  the  regular 
demands  of  the  country  in  less  than  six  years.  Now,  the  greater  part  of 
these  purchases  has  been  made  upon  loans;  the  interest  is  running  on; 
and,  unless  the  sales  shall  be  in  proportion,  do  not  all  men  see  that  the 
accumulation  of  unproductive  lands  upon  their  hands  must  infallibly  ruin 
those  who  are  engaged  in  such  speculations  ? ' '  Calhoun,  February  4, 1837 ; 
Works,  II,  pp.  620,  621. 


EUKOPEAN   CAPITAL.  183 

noted,  especially,  that  the  price  of  the  public  lands  remained 
the  same,  while  all  other  prices  were  rising  greatly.^ 

It  became  a  matter  of  great  importance  that  the  great 
temptation  lying  in  this  came  to  the  south  in  a  very  seduc- 
tive garb. 

It  has  been  remarked  already  that  the  speculation  was  very 
directly  and  very  powerfully  promoted  by  cities,  counties,  and 
even  by  states.  How  far  this  went  in  particular  instances, 
I  am  not  able  to  show.  I  have  been  able  to  find  only  a  few 
vague  statistics;  but  from  these  it  is  possible  to  draw  an  ap- 
proximately correct  picture  of  the  state  of  things  which  pre- 
vailed. At  the  beginning  of  1830,  the  aggregate  of  the  state 
debts  is  said  to  have  amounted  to  about  $13,000,000,'*  and  in 
May,  1836,  "Webster  estimated  the  European  cajpital  in- 
vested in  the  securities  of  the  states  of  the  Union  at 
$50,000,000.^  Two  years  later  he  thought  that  not  less  than 
$100,000,000  of  European  money  had  been  loaned,  in  the 
United  States,  to  states,  corporations  and  individuals,  to  be 
used  in  internal  improvements.*  It  is  said  that  the  south 
alone  —  and,  indeed,  the  youngest  slave  states  and  slave  ter- 
ritories exclusively  —  had  issued  $50,000,000  of  state  securi- 
ties, in  the  six  or  seven  years  preceding  the  crash,  to  cover 
the  loans  made  in  London.' 

' "  And,  sir,  closely  connected  with  these  causes  is  another,  which  I 
should  consider,  after  all,  the  main  cause;  that  is,  the  low  price  of  land, 
compared  with  other  descriptions  of  property.  In  everything  else  prices 
have  run  up;  but  here,  price  is  chained  down  by  the  statute.  Goods,  pre 
ducts  of  all  kinds,  and,  indeed,  all  other  lands,  may  rise,  and  many  of  them 
have  risen,  some  twenty-five,  and  some  forty  or  fifty  per  cent."  WebsL's 
Works,  IV,  p.  262. 

'The  "  Noiih  American  Review,"  Jan.,  1844,  p.  110. 

•Webster's  Works,  IV,  p.  261. 

*  Van  Buren  says,  in  his  annual  message  of  December  24, 1839:  "The 
foreign  debts  of  oui"  states,  corporations  and  men  of  business  can  scarcely 
be  less  than  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  requiring  more  than  ten  mill- 
ions a  year  to  pay  the  interest.     "Statesm.'8  Man.,  II,  p.  1244. 

• "  In  1831-2,  money  became  very  cheap  in  London,  and,  as  a  conse- 


184  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

The  money  obtained  from  the  sale  of  bonds,  most  of  which 
bore  six  per  cent,  interest,  was  employed  in  the  establish- 
ment of  banlis,  which  loaned  it  to  planters  chiefly,  at  eight 
per  cent.  Not  only  the  plantations,  but  also  the  slaves  and 
their  posterity,  served  as  security  for  such  loans  —  the  plan- 
tations in  Florida,  for  instance,  at  the  rate  of  eight  dollars  an 
acre,  and  the  slaves  at  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  each. 
After  the  exposition  of  the  nature  of  slave  labor  already 
given,  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  the  borrowed  money  was 
not  used  in  the  improvement  of  plantations  already  under 
cultivation,  that  is,  in  more  highly  farming  them.  A  real 
exodus  of  slaveholders  and  their  slaves  took  place.  Planters 
without  any  means,  and  the  sons  of  large  planters,  moved 
away  with  from  twenty  to  thirty  slaves,  began  to  grub  up 
large  tracts  of  virgin  soil  and  laid  the  foundation  of  new 
plantations,  without  any  capital  except  the  sums  borrowed 
from  the  banks  on  the  security  of  the  mortgaged  land  and 
slaves.  Of  the  public  lands  which  were  sold  in  the  ten  years 
beginning  with  1830,  20,132,240  acres  were  from  the  young 
slave  states  and  slave  territories  —  Alabama,  Florida,  Ar- 
kansas, Louisiana,  Mississippi  and  Tennessee.  This,  there- 
fore, meant  a  great  shifting  of  the  slave  population.  While 
its  increase  from  1830  to  1840,  in  the  old  slave  states, 
amounted  to  86,392,  in  the  new  slave  states  and  slave  ter- 
ritories it  was  391,920,  i.  «.,  in  the  latter  their  number  nearly 
doubled.  The  aggregate  increase  of  the  slave  population 
amounted  to  twenty-four  per  cent.,  but  it  was  only  five  and  a 

quence,  found  its  way  in  great  abundance  all  over  the  world.  The  south 
was  not  slow  to  avail  itself  of  this  circumstance,  and  banks  were  started  in 
great  number,  on  borrowed  money.  Nearly  all  the  states  borrowed 
large  sums:  Alabama,  $11,000,000;  Louisiana,  120,000,000;  Mississippi, 
17,500,000;  Arkansas,  $3,500,000;  Florida,  $3,900,000  —  altogether  more 
than  $-50,000,000  of  state  stocks  were  issued  for  money  obtained  in  Lon- 
don. This  money  was  used  for  bank  capital,  and  loaned  to  planters  and 
others."    The  "Democratic Review,"  Aug.,  1848,  p.  101. 


PEICE   OF   COTTON.  185 

half  per  cent,  in  the  old  slave  states,  and  in  three  old  border 
states  and  the  District  of  Colombia,  there  was  even  a  decrease 
of  26,288.*  The  center  of  gravity  of  the  slave  population,  and 
with  it  the  center  of  gravity  of  the  slaveholding  interest,  be- 
gan to  be  transferred  in  the  direction  of  the  southwest.  The 
capital,  under  the  stimulating  influence  of  which  this  process 
was  accomplished,  came  from  the  fi*ee  states  and  from 
Europe.'  The  security  for  this  capital  was  not  only  the  land 
of  the  plantations,  but  also  the  slaves,  with  their  yet  unborn 
posterity.  The  ultimate  exciting  cause  of  the  whole  was  the 
demand  for  cotton,  which  was  increasing  in  immense  pro- 
portions. The  price  of  cotton  had  risen  rapidly  from  six  to 
eight  and  ten  cents  per  pound;  *  maintained  itself,  between 
1833  and  1834,  steadily  between  the  limits  eleven  and  one- 
third  and  eleven  and  three-fourths  cents;  in  1835,  between 
fourteen  cents,  its  lowest  price,  and  twenty  cents,*  its  highest; 
fluctuated  during  the  last  months  of  1836  between  twelve 
and  twenty;  fell,  in  April,  1837,  to  eleven  and  fifteen;  and' 
finally,  in  May,  to  eight  and  twelve.'    This  enormous  en- 


1 

1&30 
1840 

Alabama.   Arkansas. 
117,549           4,576 
253,532         19,939 

163,0aj         15,363 

Florida.   Louisiana. 
15,011        10^,588 
25,717       168,452 

10,706         5S,864 

itates.         Old  states. 
a36              1,535,057 
906              1,641,449 

920                   86,392 

MIsslppl. 

65,659 

195,211 

129,952 

Tennessee. 
141 ,603 
183,059 

Increase. 

41,456 

ToUI.     Kew  i 
1830         453, 
l&W         845, 

Vlrdnla. 

469,757 

446.987 

22,T!0 

Increase.       391, 

] 
1830 
1840 

Delaware. 
3,292 
2,t>05 

637 

Maryland. 
102,994 
89,r37 

13,257 

DIst. 

of  Colombia. 

6,119 

4,649 

1,425 

Total. 
1,143.164 
1,116,870 

Decrease. 

28,288 

« The  "  Democratic  Review"  (August,  1848,  p.  102),  from  which  the  above 
data  are  taken,  estimates  the  foreign  capital  with  which  this  extension  of 
slavery  on  a  large  scale  was  made,  at  $200,000,000. 

*  Grosvenor,  p.  35.    Unfortunately,  he  does  not  state  the  precise  year. 

*W.  G.Sumner,  p.  121. 

» W.  G.  Sumner,  p.  135. 


186  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

liancement  of  price,  while  production  increased  steadily  and 
rapidly,  might  well  turn  people's  heads.  How  was  it  possi- 
ble not  to  call  cotton  "  king,"  and  to  fall  into  the  delusion 
that  the  limits  of  his  kingdom  could  not  be  too  wide!  They 
extended  with  very  great  rapidity.  Tlie  cotton  crop  of  the 
United  States  was,  between  1833  and  1837,  from  1,070,438 
bales  to  1,422,9GS  bales,  and  the  entire  increase  came  from 
the  new  slave  states.^ 

Es'eu  more  acute  thinkers  than  Jackson  might  have  al- 
lowed themselves  to  be  misled  into  exulting  over  the  general 
prosperity,  and  seeing  one  of  the  clearest  proofs  of  it  in  the 
astounding  demand  for  the  public  lands.  The  president  was 
now  able  to  add  the  announcement  that  the  national  debt 
was  entirely  extinguished,  to  the  gratitude  which  he  had  ex- 
pressed to  Providence  in  his  yearly  message  of  December  2, 
1835,  for  the  blessings^  which  had  been  bestowed  on  the 
country  in  a  measure  greater  than  ever  before.  He  expected 
\o  see  the  yearly  account  closed  with  a  credit  of  $19,000,000, 
and  believed  that  about  $11,000,000  would  remain  at  the 
free  disposal  of  congress.^  The  United  States  were  so  rich 
that  the  branches  of  government  had  to  quarrel  among  them- 
selves as  to  how  the  surplus  should  be  emploj^ed.  The  irony 
of  fate  so  willed  it  that  the  decision  of  this  question  had  a 
material  share  in  the  rapid  revolution  of  the  wheel  of  fortune. 

As  early  as  April  16,  1832,  Clay  had  introduced  a  bill 

'  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  1.  c  In  1833,  of  the  entire  crop,  536,450  bales 
came  from  the  new  slave  states,  and  513,988  from  the  old.  In  1837,  from 
the  former,  916,960:  from  the  latter,  506,608. 

* "  Never,  in  any  former  period  of  our  history,  have  we  had  greater  rea- 
son than  we  now  have,  to  be  thankful  to  Divine  Providence  for  the  bless- 
ings of  health  and  general  prosperity.  Every  branch  of  labor  we  see 
crowned  with  the  most  abundant  rewards;  in  every  element  of  national 
resources  and  wealth,  and  of  individual  comfort,  we  witness  the  most  rapid 
and  solid  improvements."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  996. 

» Ibid.,  p.  1006. 


THE  LAND   QUESTION.  187 

providing  for  tlie  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of 
the  public  lands  among  the  states,  into  the  senate.^  In  the 
senate  there  was  a  majority  in  favor  of  the  pi'oposition,'  but 
in  the  house  of  representatives  the  bill  did  not  come  up 
for  debate  at  all.  On  the  12th  of  December  of  the  same 
year,  Clay  introduced  it  again  into  the  senate.'  It  was 
passed  by  both  houses,  and  was  sent  to  the  president  for  ap- 
proval on  the  2d  of  March.  As  the  3d  of  March  fell  on  a 
Sunday,  on  which  it  is  not  usual  for  the  president  to  put 
his  signature  to  bills,  it  was  really  the  last  day  of  the  session, 
and  Jackson  allowed  the  committee  to  dissolve  without  hav- 
ing come  to  a  decision.  Not  until  the  4th  of  December 
did  he  send  the  bill  to  the  senate  with  a  veto,  argued  at 
length,  and  in  which  tlie  weight  of  reasons  was  unquestion- 
ably on  his  side.  More  than  two  years  elapsed  and  not  one 
step  farther  had  been  taken.  The  extinguishment  of  the 
national  debt,  and  the  accumulating  surplus,  forbade  the 
postponement  of  the  question  any  longer:  it  was  necessary 
to  come  to  some  conclusion.  Calhoun,  on  the  25tli  of  May, 
1836,  made  a  motion  in  the  senate  intended,  under  a  false 
title  and  in  a  roundabout  way,  to  lead  to  Clay's  original 
object  in  that  which  was  most  essential.*  lie  neither  men- 
tioned the  public  lands,  nor  did  he  wish  to  "  distribute  "  the 
surplus  among  the  states.  Everybody  knew  that  the  public 
lands  had  hitherto  been  the  great  source  of  the  surplus,  and 
expected  that  they  would  continue  to  be  so  in  the  future. 
But  Calhoun  now  treated  the  surplus  as  a  fact  with  which 
it  was  necessary  to  deal,  no  matter  to  what  cause  it  might 
be  reduced,  and  he  soon  got  rid  of  it  by  making,  so  far  as 
form  went,  a  mere  provisional  disposition  of  it.     The  quea- 

>  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,   p.  446. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  509,  510. 

» Ibid.  XII,  p.  12. 

*  Deb.  of  Cong.,  XII,  p.  765. 


188  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tion  of  the  deposits  had  to  offer  its  services  to  solve  the  land 
question,  and  in  such  a  way  that  after  the  deduction  of  a 
certain  amount  the  surplus  was  to  be  "  deposited  "  with  the 
states.  After  some  immaterial  modification,  the  two  houses 
agreed  to  this  proposition,  and  on  the  23d  of  June,  1836, 
the  bill  was  signed  by  the  president,^  not,  however,  without 
reluctance.  It  was  not  even  attempted  in  the  debates  to 
conceal  in  any  way  that  these  deposits  were  really  a  division. 
Calhoun  did  not,  indeed,  wish  to  admit  the  truth  of  Wright's 
assertion,  that  the  unwillingness  of  the  states  to  restore  the 
sums  they  had  once  obtained  would  always  leave  the  majority 
of  congress  against  such  a  demand,  but  he  readily  granted 
that  congress  would  come  to  this  resolve  only  very  reluc- 
tantly. On  the  other  hand,  he  insisted  that  the  deposits 
would  give  the  states  the  means  to  discharge  their  debts  and 
to  continue  their  system  of  internal  improvements.'^  But 
the  watchword  of  the  day  was  not:  pay  your  debts,  but: 
make  debts;  and  the  system  of  internal  improvements,  jus- 
tifiable as  it  was  in  itself,  was  already  close  on  the  limits  of 
what  was  required  by  present  wants,  and  had  for  a  long  time 
been  operating  as  a  stimulant  to  the  unbridled  spirit  of  spec- 
ulation. 

Jackson  had  in  the  meantime  become  convinced  that  it 
was  necessary  to  put  a  powerful  check  on  the  latter.  He 
endeavored  in  his  own  inconsiderate  and  thorough  -  going 
manner  to  impose  such  a  check  himself  on  the  spirit  of 
speculation,  without  being  conscious  of  the  fact  that  in  so 
doing  he  smote  himself  in  the  face. 

Banton  had,  as  early  as  the  23d  of  April,  1836,  made  a 
motion  in  the  senate  that  henceforth  only  gold  and  silver 
should  be  received  in  payment  for  the  public  lands.'    The 

>  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  52. 

•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  pp.  768,  769.    See,  also,  XIII,  p.  491. 

•Ibid.,  Xn,  p.  760. 


Jackson's  C!iEcnjT.AB.  189 

resolution  found  so  little  support  that  it  was  not  possible  to 
provoke  any  exhaustive  debate  on  it  But  scarcely  was  con- 
gress dissolved  when  the  administration,  of  its  own  accord, 
disposed  of  the  question  in  a  way  which  was  in  harmony 
with  Benton's  motion.* 

This  so-called  specie  circular  must  be  considered  and 
judged  from  two  different  points  of  view:  the  legal  and  the 
practico-political. 

Congress  had,  on  the  30th  of  April,  1816,  determined  in 
the  form  of  a  resolution  what  value-paper  besides  the  legal 
money  of  the  United  States  should  be  taken  in  payment  by 
the  treasury.'  The  opposition  looked  upon  this  resolution  as 
an  imperative  order  which  left  no  discretion  whatever  to  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury.  On  the  other  hand,  Woodbury,  in 
his  circular,  had  said  that  the  indulgences  hitherto  usual 
should  no  longer  be  granted.  The  administration,  in  support 
of  its  view  of  the  case,  adduced  the  fact  that  a  certain  amount 
of  discretion  had  been  actually  exercised  by  former  secreta- 
ries of  the  treasury,  and  that  no  objection  to  the  exercise  of 
such  discretion  had  been  raised  by  any  one.  The  opposition 
rightly  called  the  assertion  that  congress  had  committed  the 
regulation  of  a  matter  so  important  to  the  entire  economic 
life  of  the  country  entirely  to  the  caprice  of  the  executive, 
simply  absurd.  The  wording  of  the  resolution  afforded 
ground  for  argument  to  both  parties  to  the  controversy,  al- 
though it  left  the  administration  the  weaker  defensive  posi- 
tion. It  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  more  exhaustively  the 
reasons  on  both  sides,  since  people  might  here,  in  the  best  of 
faith,  have  held  different  views,  and  the  different  interpreta- 

'July  11,1836.  NUesK.p.  337.  The  order  to  take  only  gold  and 
silver  for  the  public  lands,  on  and  after  the  15th  of  Augfust,  was  given 
under  certain  limitations,  which  were,  indeed,  not  without  importance  at 
the  time,  but  which  can  claim  no  general  interest. 

•StatatL.,  Ill,  p.  343. 


190  Jackson's  adi^inistration-^  annexation  of  texas. 

tions  of  the  resolution  of  April  30, 1816,  involved  no  consti- 
tutional principles.^  There  were  such  principles,  indeed,  in 
question,  but  entirely  independent  of  this  resolution.  Benton, 
who  in  a  somewhat  allegorical  manner  represented  himself 
as  the  real  originator  of  the  circular  of  July  11th,  thinks  it 
incumbent  upon  him  to  land  Jackson  in  a  special  manner, 
because  he  issued  it  in  opposition  not  only  to  congress,  but 
also  to  a  majority  of  his  cabinet.  The  senator  expressly 
states  at  the  same  time  that  the  adjournment  of  congress  was 
waited  for  only  in  order  that  it  might  not  be  able  to  dispose 
of  the  matter  otherwise  by  a  legislative  act.'  Subsequent 
events  proved  that  this  wonld  have  been  actual]}^  the  case. 
A  bill  was  passed  during  the  next  session,  in  the  senate, 
by  a  vote  of  forty-one  against  five,  and  in  the  house  of  rep- 
resentatives, by  one  hundred  and  forty-three  against  fifty- 
nine,  which  reversed  the  orders  of  the  circular.'  The  bill 
reached  the  president  only  on  the  2d  of  March,  1837,  and 
fifteen  minutes  before  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  office 
he  announced  that  he  would  neither  sign  nor  veto  it.  What- 
ever might  have  been  the  scope  of  the  resolution  of  April 
30,  1816,  Jackson  had  known  from  the  very  first  that  the 
orders  of  the  circular  of  the  11th  of  July  were  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  will  of  congress,  and  his  fears  that  the 
opposing  majority  was  great  enough  to  make  his  veto  of  no 
effect  had  been  fully  confirmed.  Jackson  had  further  ex- 
pressly recognized  that  it  was  not  only  a  question  of  prime 
importance,  but  that  it  called  for  legislative  regulation.* 

'  Any  one  interested  in  this  subordinate  side  of  the  legal  question  would 
do  well  to  compare  Webster's  speech  of  December  21,  1886.  Works,  IV, 
pp.  265  ff.,  and  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  pp.  695  fF. 

* "  It  was  issued  immediately  after  the  adjournment  of  congress,  and 
should  have  been  issued  before  the  adjournment,  except  for  the  fear  that 
congress  would  counteract  it  by  law."    Ibid.,  I,  p.  676. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  190,  333. 

*  In  the  messa^  of  the  2d  of  December,  1835,  Jackson  says,  in  treating 


Jackson's  stubboenness.  191 

Now,  as  we  have  seen,  the  constitution  grants  the  legisla- 
tive power  to  congress  alone,  and  there  prevailed  in  it  that 
unanimity  of  opinion  which  constitutes  the  constitutional 
limit  of  the  president's  power  of  control.  Spite  of  this, 
Jackson  acted  contrary  to  the  known  will  of  the  legislative 
power,  and  for  a  whole  year  kept  the  constitutional  legisla- 
tive will  from  actually  becoming  a  law;  that  is,  he,  to  whom 
the  constitution  had  granted  no  legislative  authority  what- 
ever, virtually  made  his  o^vn  sovereign  inclination  the  law 
of  the  land.  The  president  was  not  guilty  of  a  formal  vio- 
lation of  the  constitution,  but  the  wit  of  man  is  not  equal 
to  the  task,  in  the  shaping  of  political  life,  of  inventing  forms 
which  may  not  be  employed  as  weapons  against  their  own 
legitimate  substance  or  contents.  This  Jackson  did  in  this 
case!  He  did  it  fully  conscious  that  he  was  doing  it,  and 
both  he  and  his  accomplices  took  great  credit  to  themselves 
that  he  did  do  it.     Again  were  the  rights  granted  the  pres- 

of  the  question  of  deposits:  "  In  the  regulations  which  congress  may  pre- 
jcribe  respecting  the  custody  of  the  pubhc  moneys,  it  is  desiiable  that  as 
little  discretion  as  maybe  deemed  consistent  with  their  safe  keeping  should 
be  given  to  the  executive  agents.  No  One  can  be  more  deeply  impressed 
than  I  am  with  the  soundness  of  the  doctrine  which  restrains  and  limits, 
by  specific  provisions,  executive  discretion,  as  far  as  it  can  be  done  consist- 
ently with  the  preservation  of  its  constitutional  character.  In  respect  to 
the  control  over  the  public  money,  this  doctrine  is  peculiarly  applicable, 
and  is  in  harmony  with  the  great  principle  which  I  felt  I  was  sustaining  in 
the  controversy  with  the  Bank  of  the'United  States.  .  .  .  The  duty  of 
the  legislature  to  define,  by  clear  and  positive  enactment,  the  nature  and 
extent  of  the  action  which  it  belongs  to  the  executive  to  superintend, 
springs  out  of  a  policy  analogous  to  that  which  enjoins  upon  all  the  branches 
of  the  Federal  government  an  abstinence  from  the  exercise  of  powers  not 
clearly  granted.  .  .  .  In  its  appUcation  to  the  executive,  with  refer- 
ence to  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government,  the  same  rule  of  action 
should  make  the  president  ever  anxious  to  avoid  the  exercise  of  any  dis- 
cretionary authority  which  can  be  regulated  by  congress.  The  biases 
which  may  oi)erate  upon  him  will  not  be  so  likely  to  extend  to  the  repre- 
Bentatives  of  the  people  in  that  body."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1012. 


1 92    JACKSON'b  ADM1NI8TKATI0N ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

ident  prostituted  to  the  base  end  of  throwing  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  the  whole  constitution  to  the  ground, 
and  trampling  it  under  foot. 

Under  the  visual  angle  of  political  expediency,  this 
struggle  between  the  president  and  congress  appears  in  a 
somewhat  different  light.  Bank  notes  had  been  issued  in 
enormous  quantities,  and  it  was  necessary  to  check  the  evil. 
It  could  not  be  long  before  the  real  nature  of  the  wealth 
which  everybody  had  acquired  during  the  last  few  years 
would  be  revealed,  wealth  not  acquired  by  labor,  but  con- 
jured into  existence  by  speculation.  The  immense  bubble 
had  to  burst  And  once  burst,  the  direct  loss  of  the  United 
States  would  be,  of  course,  greater,  the  longer  the  public 
lands  were  wasted  for  the  depreciated  notes,  which  the  spec- 
ulators could  procure  in  any  quantity  they  desired.  This 
alone  should  have  sufficed  to  determine  congress  to  adopt 
the  policy  of  the  president.  But  it  mattered  not  how  great 
this  direct  damage  might  be,  it  could  constitute  but  a  small 
part  of  the  loss  which  the  entire  wealth  of  the  people  was 
destined  to  suffer  from  a  general  comnlercial  crisis.  Such 
a  crisis  could  no  longer  be  avoided,  but  its  disastrous  effects 
could  have  been  greatly  weakened.  If  the  president  and 
congress  had  kept  together  on  this  question,  and  if  congress 
had  checked  Jackson's  indiscreet  warmth,  orders  like  those 
contained  in  the  circular  of  the  11th  of  July  would  have 
served  as  a  warning  which  would,  beyond  a  question,  have 
exercised  great  influence.  But  as  congress,  with  an  unheard 
of  majority,  assumed  an  attitude  in  opposition  to  the  presi- 
dent, the  latter,  with  his  one-sided  course,  poured  oil  —  not 
on  the  troubled  waters,  but  into  the  fire.  Not  only  the 
opposition,  but  a  great  many  of  his  own  most  faithful  parti- 
sans stood  oat  against  the  president.^    Moreover,  the  presi- 

'  Will.  L.  May,  a  democratic  member  of  congress,  writes  on  the  9th  of 
December,  X836,  to  J.  Hoyt:    "  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  a  very  gen- 


Jackson's  inconsistenot.  193 

dent  had  become  untrue  to  himself.  He  now  sought  by  the 
circular  of  the  11th  of  July  to  check  and  destroy  the  thing 
which  he  had  so  materially  promoted  by  the  deposit  banks 
and  by  his  instructions  to  them.  His  present  view  was,  in- 
deed, the  more  correct,  and  hence  he  should  not  be  reproached 
with  his  inconsistency.  But  this  inconsistency  was  now  an 
undeniable  fact,  and  hence  his  judgment,  in  view  of  the  epi- 
demic speculation- fever  which  was  raging,  and  the  great 
opposition  among  his  own  partisans  in  congress,  had  not, 
from  the  first,  the  slightest  prospect  of  making  any  impres- 
sion upon  the  people.  And,  considering  this  feeling  of  the 
people,  the  circular  of  the  11th  of  July,  taken  in  conjunction 
with  the  law  on  the  gold  standard,  served  only  to  give  spec- 
ulation in  general,  and  speculation  in  the  public  land  in  par- 
ticular, a  new  and  powerful  impulse.  Benton  might  boast 
that  about  ten  millions  of  bank  notes  had  been  stopped  on 
their  way  to  the  land  ofiices  by  the  circular.^  On  the  other 
hand,  seven  millions  in  coin  were,  in  the  space  of  seven 
months,  withdrawn  from  the  banks  and  placed  in  the  deposit 
banks,"  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  demand  for  coin  pro- 
duced by  the  regulations  of  the  circular,  and  the  foolish 
provisions  of  the  law  relating  to  the  gold  standard,  caused 
immense  sums  of  gold  to  flow  to  the  United  States  from 
Europe.  Although  from  1831  to  1837  the  imports  exceeded 
the  exports  by  about  $130,600,000,  $36,000,000  in  coin  was 

era!  disjwsition  exists  on  the  part  of  the  friends  of  the  administration  to 
limit  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  to  actual  settlers;  should  this  be  accom- 
plished .  .  .  the  necessity  of  keeping  the  treasury  order  in  force  would 
no  longer  exist,  and  the  president  would  thus  be  supplied  with  the  best 
possible  reason  for  its  immediate  repeal.  All  parties,  so  far  as  my  knowl- 
edge extends,  deprecate  the  order,  not  only  as  injurious  to  every  branch  of 
trade,  but  as  tending  greatly  to  lessen  the  number  of  our  pohtical  friends." 
Mackenzie,  The  Life  and  Times  of  M.  Van  Buren,  p.  263. 

» Thirty  Years'  View,  L,  p.  678. 

•  W.  Sprague  to  J.  D.  Wolf,  Aug.  10, 1837;  Nilea,  LII,  p.  407. 
13 


194  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

imported  from  1833  to  1837.^  This  money  affected  giddy 
banking  projects  and  the  land  speculation  in  the  same  way 
tliat  a  steady,  warm  rain  does  vegetation  in  its  earlier  stages. ■' 
But  the  rope  was  already  so  tensely  stretched  that  it  could 
no  longer  bear  even  the  rupture  of  a  single  thread,  and  the 
knife  had  been  applied  even  before  the  issue  of  the  circular 
of  the  11th  of  July. 

Speculation  in  Spanish  and  Portuguese  goods  had  made 
great  demands,  in  1834,  on  the  resources  of  the  Bank  of 
England.  It  had  not  yet  regained  its  normal  condition 
when  speculation  in  the  United  States  began  in  earnest. 
Up  to  the  summer  of  1836,  bills  of  exchange  to  the  amount 
of  £2,600,000  had  been  drawn  on  the  bank.  Its  reserve  of 
gold  was  greatly  reduced,  and  on  the  1st  of  July  it  began  to 
contract  its  credits.  A  rapid  fall  of  prices  followed,^  and 
great  anxiety  prevailed  in  all  businesses.  In  Kovember, 
some  English  banks  were  greatly  embarrassed,  and  the  Bank 
of  England  came  to  their  assistance  only  on  condition  that 
they  would  go  into  liquidation.  This  blow  caused  the  ruin 
of  three  large  houses  which  did  business  with  the  United 
States.    The  stone  was  set  rolling,  and  it  had  scarcely  began 

'  W.  G.  Sumner,  p.  134.  The  data  in  Niles,  LVII,  p.  169,  after  an  arti- 
cle from  the  "  New  York  New  Era,"  do  not  exactly  agree  with  this,  but  the 
difference  is  not  great.  The  estimate  in  Legare  (Writings,  I,  p.  301),  that 
nearly  $12,000,000  in  coin  were  imported  in  1834  is  still  too  low;  there 
were  nearly  $16,000,000. 

*Tlie  "  New  York  Era"  writes:  "  Everybody  was  becoming  suddenly 
rich.  Villages  and'  cities  sprung  up  in  the  wilderness.  Houses  and  lots 
became  more  profitable  than  fine  gold.  And  wild  and  unproductive  land 
became  suddenly  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  wealth.  AU  who  had  money  or 
credit  plunged  headlong  into  the  stream.  The  farmer,  the  manufacturer 
and  merchant  instead  of  paying  their  debts  bought  lands.  The  country 
merchant  bought  lands  and  paid  the  city  merchant,  as  well  for  his  old 
debts  as  for  his  new  purchases,  in  this  new  currency,  upon  the  strength  of 
valuation,  which  deceived  himself  as  well  as  his  creditors."  Niles,  LVII, 
p.  169. 

*  Legare,  Writings,  I,  p.  299,  says  twenty  to  thirty  per  cent 


GENERAL   EUIN.  196 

to  move  when  its  rolling  was  changed  into  a  precipitous, 
headlong  fall.  The  fancy  values  of  landed  property  melted 
like  snow  in  the  April  snn;  immense  quantities  of  commod- 
ities, stored  up  without  any  regard  to  the  real  wants  of  the 
country,  lost  in  a  day  fully  one- third  of  their  value;  the 
figures  on  all  kinds  of  value-paper  became  a  bitterer  mockery 
with  every  hour;  bankruptcies  came  in  avalanches;  one 
manufactory  after  another  stopped,  and  the  number  of  those 
who  conld  find  neither  bread  nor  work  increased  by  thou- 
sands and  tens  of  thousands.*  The  south  suffered  most  of 
all.  From  Yirginia  came  the  complaint  that  all  the  great 
staple  articles  had  been  dragged  into  the  whirlpool.*  In 
Mississippi,  over  a  hundred  cases  at  law  were  begun  in  a 
single  county  within  one  month.  The  governor  rejected 
the  petition  of  the  population  to  call  the  legislature  in 
oi-der  to  put  a  stop  to  the  course  things  were  taking,  by  a 
"relief  or  replevin  law;"  but  the  citizens  summoned  the 

'  In  the  address  which  the  committee  of  merchants  of  New  York  handed 
to  the  president  on  the  3d  of  May,  1837,  we  read:  *'  Under  a  deep  im- 
pression of  the  propriety  of  confining  our  declarations  within  moderate 
limits,  we  affirm  that  the  value  of  our  reai  estate  has,  within  the  last  six 
months,  depreciated  more  than  forty  millions;  that  within  the  last  two 
months,  there  have  been  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  failures  of 
houses  engaged  in  extensive  business;  that  within  the  same  period,  a  de- 
cline of  twenty  millions  of  dollars  has  occurred  in  our  local  stocks,  includ- 
ing those  railroad  and  canal  incorporations,  which,  though  chartered  in 
other  states,  depend  chiefly  upon  New  York  for  their  sale;  that  the  im- 
mense amount  of  merchandise  in  our  warehouses  has,  within  the  same 
period,  fallen  in  value  at  least  thirty  per  cent.;  that  within  a  few  weeks, 
not  less  than  twenty  thousand  individuals,  depending  upon  their  daily 
labor  for  their  daily  bread,  have  been  discharged  by  their  employers,  be- 
cause the  means  of  retaining  them  were  exhausted,  and  that  a  complete 
blight  has  fallen  upon  a  community  heretofore  so  active,  enterprising  and 
prosperous."    Niles,  LU,  p.  166. 

«The  "Richmond  Inquirer"  writes:  "Tobacco  has  fallen  beyond  all 
calculation.  Cotton  is  down  from  seventeen  to  ten  cents  per  pound.  In- 
stead of  exporting  any  breadstuflfe,  we  have  beencompeUed,  by  the  scantity 
of  our  harvests,  to  drawupon  the  granaries  of  Europe."    Niles,  LII,  p.  131 . 


196  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

sheriff  to  resign,  and  threatened  any  one  who  should  accept 
the  office  provisionally.*  It  was  said  that  in  Mobile  nine 
out  of  every  ten  merchants  had  suspended  payments.'^  Kew 
Orleans,  it  was  written  to  the  Courier  and  Inquirer,  on 
the  16th  of  April,  was  in  anarchie  finandere,  and  was  en- 
tirely bankrupt.'  And  the  True  American  wrote  on  the 
4th  of  May:  "  The  monopoly  of  the  cotton  staple  has  fallen 
by  its  own  weight.  There  will  not  be  a  house  left  to  tell 
the  tale."* 

While  the  airy  castle  of  speculation  was  thus  tumbling  on 
all  sides,  the  day  was  approaching  on  which  the  deposit 
banks  had  to  pay  the  first  two  installments  of  the  surplus  of 
$40,000,000  which  was  to  be  divided.  This  was  the  finish- 
ing blow.  When  the  Di-y  Dock  Bank  of  New  York,  one  of 
the  deposit  banks,  stopped  payment,  the  creditors  of  the 
other  banks  began  to  storm  them  in  such  a  manner  that 
they,  without  exception,  suspended  cash  payments  on  the 
10th  of  May.  The  banks  of  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia 
immediately  followed  the  example  of  those  of  JSTew  York, 
and  the  suspension  soon  became  general.'  The  wild  anath- 
ema which  Jackson  now  hurled  against  his  own  creatures, 
the  "treacherous  deposit  bariks,"  died  away  unheard,  and 


'  Ibid.,  p.  101.  "  No  land  sales  presented  a  higher  degree  of  excitement, 
or  more  gigantic  schemes  of  speculation,  than  in  Mississippi.  ...  In 
the  crash  of  1836,  '7,  '8,  '9,  an  almost  universal  bankruptcy  ensued  amongst 
us,  and  some  of  the  finest  portions  of  Mississippi  became  partially  depopu- 
lated."   De  Bow,  C!ommerc.  Review,  I  Ser.,  Vol.  VII,  p.  39. 

•Niles,  LII,p.  113. 

•Ibid.,  p.  130. 

<Nile8,  LII,  p.  161. 

•  "What  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  and  calculated  to  excite  a  suspicion 
that  something  was  wrong,  is  the  fact  that  the  suspension  at  New  Orleans, 
Mobile  and  other  places  occurred  a  few  days  after  that  at  New  York,  but 
before  there  could  have  been  any  commimication."  Niles  in  the  Senate, 
Sept.  20,  1837;  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  376. 


CAUSES  OF  THE   CEISIS.  197 

« 

conld  bring  no  assistance.^  As  all  the  blame  was  imputed 
to  the  financial  policy  of  the  administration,  it  was  consid- 
ered that  the  government  should  now  come  to  the  rescue, 
'  Only  the  account  was  not  presented  to  Jackson,  but  to  his 
fortunate  heir. 

.  Yan  Buren,  who  had  entered  the  office  with  no  programme 
but  that  of  imitating  his  predecessor,  Jackson,  thus  saw 
himself,  during  his  very  first  weeks  in  the  presidency,  face 
to  face  with  a  new  and  great  problem,  which  was  destined 
to  constitute  the  most  important  chapter  in  the  history 
of  his  administration.  We  must  do  him  the  justice  to  say 
that  he  was  much  better  fitted  for  the  task  of  meeting  it 
than  the  majority  of  congress.  In  this  one  question  he 
really  evinced  courage,  firmness  and  statesmanlike  insight; 
and  it  was  important  enough  to  make  the  victory  which  he 
won  in  it  figure  as  a  large  credit  against  the  debit  which 
constituted  the  rest  of  the  account  of  his  administration. 

The  position  of  the  president  was  a  very  difficult  one. 
Much  as  the  guilt  of  his  predecessor  was  exaggerated,  it 
could  not  be  denied  that  he  was  not  entirely  without  blame. 
But  if  this  was  admitted^  it  was  necessarily  impossible,  con- 
sidering the  frightful  excitement  in  the  country,  to  obtain 
from  the  people  a  measurably  rational  and  equitable  judg- 
ment as  to  the  extent  and  nature  of  that  guilt.     And  it  must 

'  Jackson  wrote,  on  the  9th  of  July,  1837:  "The  history  of  the  world 
never  has  recorded  such  base  treachery  and  perfidy  as  has  been  committed 
by  the  deposit  banks  against  the  government,  and  purely  with  the  view  of 
gratifying  Biddle  and  the  Barings,  and  by  the  resumption  of  specie  pay- 
ments, degrade,  embarrass  and  ruin,  if  .they  could,  their  own  country,  for 
the  selfish  views  of  making  large  profits  by  throwing  out  milhons  of  depre- 
ciated paper  upon  the  people  — selling  their  8i)ecie  at  large  premiums,  and 
buying  up  their  own  paper  at  discounts  of  twenty-five  to  fifty  per  cent.,  and 
now  looking  forward  to  be  indulged  in  these  speculations  for  years  to  come, 
before  they  resume  specie  pajrments."  Niles,  Lll,  p.  370.  See  also  his 
letter  of  the  17th  of  December,  1837,  to  Moses  Dawson.  Ibid.,  LIII,  pp. 
314,  315. 


198  Jackson's  administbation"  —  annexation  of  texas. 

have  been  more  difficult  yet  to  make  it  apparent  that  what 
was  bad  would  be  only  made  worse,  if  simply  the  reverse 
of  that  which  was  originally  really  wrong  in  Jackson's 
policy,  or  which  was  first  to  draw  evil  consequences  after  it, 
were  to  be  done  now.  In  great  economic  crises,  ignorance, 
consciousness  of  guilt  and  excitement  always  join  hands  to 
drag  the  government  into  the  prisoner's  dock,  and  they  will 
always  be  inclined  to  make  it  a  demand  of  healthy  common 
sense  and  an  unassailable  logical  deduction,  that  legislation 
should  now  veer  about  and  steer,  under  full  canvas,  in  the 
opposite  direction.  In  an  address  handed  by  a  committee 
of  the  merchants  of  New  York  to  the  president  on  the  3d 
of  May,  we  read :  "  The  error  of  our  rulers  has  produced  a 
wider  desolation  than  the  pestilence  which  depopulated  our 
streets,  or  the  conflagration  which  laid  them  in  ashes."  * 
That  the  crisis  was  to  be  considered  the  effect  of  "  any  ex- 
cessive development  of  mercantile  enterprise,"  was  contested 
in  express  terms.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  emphatically 
alleged  that  New  York  considered  itself  "  an  adequate  judge 
of  all  questions  connected  with  the  trade  and  currency  of 
the  country;"  and  then  sentence  of  death  was  pronounced 
on  the  financial  policy  of  the  last  administration  in  partic- 
ular. This  was  the  tone  and  character  of  the  numerous 
addresses  and  representations  which  admonished  the  presi- 
dent to  do  his  "duty,"  and  to  afford  redress. 

Yan  Buren  bore  the  storm  bravely.  He  repelled  all  re- 
proaches with  decision,  but  with  no  bitterness,  and  declared 
that  he  could  not  surrender  his  old  views,  which  were  well 
known  to  the  country.  Only  in  one  point  was  he  soon 
obliged  to  yield.  The  deputation  from  New  York  had  re- 
quested him  to  convoke  congress  in  extraordinary  session. 
He  answered  that  he  saw  no  reason  to  so  convoke  it.  He 
was  obliged  to  come  to  a  better  conviction.     The  suspension 

•Niles,  UI,  p.  166. 


FINANCIAL   ETVrBABRASSMENT.  199 

of  specie  payments  made  it  impossible  for  the  government 
to  comply  with  the  provisions  of  the  law  of  the  23d  of  June, 
1836,  on  the  keeping  of  the  public  moneys.^  Hence,  some 
other  disposition  had  to  be  made  of  them  by  law.  Besides, 
all  the  matured  deposits  were  unavailable,  at  least  to  the 
extent  that  the  administration  did  not  wish  to  receive  them 
in  depreciated  paper.  As  there  was  further  prospect  of  a 
large  reduction  of  income,  especially  from  duties,  it  was 
inevitable-  that  the  administration  would  soon  be  greatly 
embarrassed.  One  year  after  the  hotly  contested  question, 
how  the  government  should  dispose  of  the  oppressive  surplus, 
had  been  finally  decided,  congress  had  to  be  hastily  convened 
in  order  to  procure  for  the  administration  the  means  which 
were  merely  necessary  to  support  itself,  and  it  could  dis- 
cover no  expedient  but  the  creation  of  a  new  national  debt 
in  the  form  of  treasury  warrants.'  Party  politics  charged 
this  also  to  Yan  Buren's  account. 

Congress  met  on  the  4th  of  September,  1837.  In  the 
house  of  representatives,  the  strength  of  the  opposing  par- 
ties was  immediately  evidenced  by  the  choice  of  the  speaker. 
James  K.  Polk,  the  administration  candidate,  received  one 
hundred  and  sixteen  votes,  only  three  more  than  were  re- 
quired for  an  election.'  There  was  consequently  not  much 
wanting  to  place  tlie  administration  in  the  condition  of  a 
minority;  for  it  was  by  no  means  a  matter  of  course  that  all 
who  adhered  to  it  generally  would  share  the  views  of  the 
president  in  the  all-overshadowing  financial  question  also. 

'  Among  the  obligations  which  the  banks  were  obliged  to  undertake  in 
order  to  get  the  deposits,  was  this  one:  "To  credit  as  specie,  all  sums 
deposited  therein  to  the  credit  of  the  treasiirer  of  the  United  States,  and 
to  pay  all  checks,  warrants,  or  drafts,  drawn  on  such  deposits,  in  specie  if 
required  by  the  holder  thereof,"    Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  53. 

» Law  of  Oct.  12,  1837.    Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  201. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  461. 


200  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

And  Van  Buren  had,  indeed,  his  own  special  views  on  the  sub- 
ject. His  message  was  not  confined  to  tracing  the  causes  of 
the  crisis  and  proposing  means  to  remove  the  government's 
want  of  money  at  the  moment.  It  is  a  document  of  lasting 
historical  interest  only  because  it  in  an  exhaustive  manner 
supports  a  plan  of  an  entirely  new  organization  of  the  admin- 
istration of  the  finances.  It  was  shameful  to  "  postpone  "  the 
payment  of  ^  the  fourth  installment  of  the  surplus;  and  it 
was  still  more  shameful,  as  Webster  said,  to  drive  away  the 
bank  notes  completely  by  gold  and  silver  in  the  fifth  year  of 
the  experiment,  and  to  propose  a  "regular  emission  of  paper 
money."  ^  Great  as  the  opportunities  thus  afforded  to  the 
opposition  for  sensitive  thrusts  was,  money  had  to  be  pro- 
cm'ed,  and  these  expedients  lay  nearest  at  hand.  They  were 
all  the  less  adapted  to  a  decisiv^e  attack  on  the  administra- 
tion, as  they  bore  an  entirely  temporary  character.  Leaving 
the  new  system,  the  introduction  of  which  the  president  ad- 
vocated, out  of  consideration,  nothing  involved  a  principle  of 
any  importance  except  the  declaration  of  the  message  that 
no  specific  aid  should  be  expected  from  the  administration 
in  respect  to  the  need  of  the  moment;  any  attempt  to  afford 
such  aid  would  be  in  conflict  with  the  political  nature  of  the 
republic,  and  would  be  beyond  the  constitutional  power  of 
the  Federal  government.^     The  denunciations  which  this 

'  Law  of  October  2(i,  1837,  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  201.  The  payment  should 
have  been  made  on  the  1st  of  January,  1839;  but  the  treasury  had  no 
money  and  it  was  not  made  then,  nor  at  all. 

•Websi's  Works,  IV,  p.  318. 

•"Those  who  look  to  the  action  of  the  government  for  specific  aid  to  the 
citizen  to  reheve  embarrassments  arising  from  losses  by  revulsions  in  com- 
merce and  credit,  lose  sight  of  the  ends  for  which  it  was  created,  and  the 
powers  with  which  it  is  clothed,  ...  If ,  therefore,  I  refrain  from  sug- 
gesting to  congress  any  specific  plan  for  regulating  the  exchanges  of  the 
country,  relieving  mercantile  embarrassments,  or  interfering  with  the  ordi- 
nary operations  of  foreign  or  domestic  commerce,  it  is  from  a  conviction 
that  such  measures  are  not  within  the  constitutional  province  of  the  general 


VAN  BIJEEN's  PI.AN.  201 

declaration  called  forth,  found,  it  may  be  readily  imagined,  a 
loud  echo  among  the  people;  but  they  were  rather  declama- 
tions with  demagogical  flights  than  arguments.^  Van  Buren 
unquestionably  merited  well  of  the  country,  because  he  re- 
fused his  cooperation,  in  accordance  with  the  guardianship 
principle  of  the  old  absolutisms,  to  accustom  the  people  of 
the  republic  also,  to  see  tlie  government  enter  as  a  saving 
Deus  ex  mackma^  in  every  calamity  brought  about  by  their 
own  fault  and  folly. 

The  new  system  which  the  president  proposed  consisted 
simply  in  this,  that  the  public  moneys  should  henceforth  be 
administered  by  the  government  itself  entirely  independ- 

govemment,  and  that  their  adoption  would  not  promote  the  real  and  i)er- 
manent  welfare  of  those  they  might  be  designed  to  aid."  Statesm/s 
Man.,  II,  pp.  1176,  1177. 

'  I  here  leave  out  of  consideration  the  great  controyersy  whether  the  gen- 
eral government  has  the  right  and  whether  it  is  its  duty,  besides  gold  and 
silver  money,  to  create  "  a  national  currency."  A  critical  examination  of 
the  question  from  the  standpoint  of  constitutional  law,  would  not  be  pos- 
sible without  an  exhaustive  exposition  of  its  historical  development;  but 
this  belongs  rather  to  a  history  of  finance,  and  would  carry  us  too  far  here. 
I  would  only  remark  just  now  that  I  consider  the  argument  of  Webster 
and  of  the  other  whigs  irrefutable,  and  that  unhappy  as  they  seem  to  me 
to  have  been  in  their  positive  proposals,  I  agree  with  their  opinion  in  this, 
that  the  government  should  have  made  use  of  this  right.  In  the  censures 
against  them  in  the  text,  I  have  had  in  mind  only  such  expressions  as  this 
of  Webster:  '*  It  is,  however,  to  the  credit  of  the  president,  that  he  has 
given,  in  an  unequivocal  and  intelligible  manner,  his  reasons  for  not  recom- 
mending a  plan  for  the  relief  of  the  country;  and  they  are,  that,  according 
to  his  views,  it  is  not  within  the  constitutional  province  of  government.  I 
confess  this  declaration  is  to  me  quite  astounding,  and  I  cannot  but  think 
that,  when  it  comes  to  be  considered,  it  will  produce  a  shock  throughout 
the  country.  This  avowed  disregard  for  the  public  distress,  upon  the 
ground  of  the  alleged  want  of  power;  this  exclusive  concern  for  the  inter- 
est of  government  and  revenue;  this  broad  line  of  distinction,  now,  for  the 
lirst  time,  drawn  between  the  interests  of  the  government  and  the  interests 
of  the  people,  must  certainly  be  regarded  as  commencing  a  new  era  in  our 
politics."  Webst.'s  Works,  IV,  pp.  313,  314.  See  also  Deb.  of  Congr., 
XI II,  pp.  380,  385,  436,  482. 


202  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  tex as. 

ently,  and  independent  of  banks  of  every  kind.  The  friends 
of  the  plan  called  it  the  divorce  of  the  government  and  the 
banks,  otherwise  the  independent  treasury.  Yan  Buren's 
argument,  very  exhaustive  and  written  with  clearness  and 
acumen,  may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  points:  Neither 
the  system  of  the  national  bank  nor  that  of  the  deposit  banks 
has  stood  the  test  of  trial,  and  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
can  ever  stand  the  test  of  trial,  because  the  fundamental  idea 
of  both  is  an  absurd  one;  there  remains,  therefore,  nothing 
to  do  but  to  put  the  government  on  its  own  feet,  and  this  is 
not  only  possible,  but  will  be  a  blessing  both  to  the  govern- 
ment and  the  people,  because  it  would  dissolve  the  unnatural 
connection  between  that  which  should  be  the  exclusive  do- 
main of  private  business  and  the  government;  a  connection 
which  had  produced  the  most  disastrous  effects. 

Van  Buren  was  not  the  father  of  the  thought.  As  early 
as  1834,  W.  F.  Gordon,  of  Virginia,  had  developed  it  in  the 
house  of  representatives,  and  put  it  into  the  form  of  a  mo- 
tion. Only  thirty-three  votes  were  cast  for  the  proposition, 
aud  of  tlics3  thirty-two  belonged  to  the  opposition.^  Hence, 
the  president  expected  of  the  party  that  it  would  now  do 
that  which  it  had  declared  against  three  years  before  in  one 
house  of  congress  with  only,  one  dissenting  voice.  Consid- 
ering the  dread  of  American  politicians  of  the  charge  of  the 
slightest  inconsistency,  this  was  asking  not  a  little.  Ben- 
ton's declaration  that  the  good  services  of  the  state  banks 
should  have  been  secured  against  the  United  States  bank, 
and  that  the  deposit  banks  had  led  to  the  independent 
treasury,^  was,  looked  at  in  the  light,  less  a  weakening  of 
the  reproach  than  a  farther  self-accusation.  But  as  the 
inconsistency  was  demanded,  not  of  individuals,  but  of  the 
entire  party,  declarations  like  this  might  be  used  as  an 
excuse,  and  even  as  a  justification,  without  any  fear  of  a  ma- 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  pp.  506,  507,  and  XIII,  p.  ■103. 
*  He  calls  them  the  "  half-way  house." 


CALHOUN   LEAVES    HIS   ALLIES.  203 

terial  enfeebling  of  the  party  because  of  the  inconsistency. 
The  great  raajorit}-,  therefore,  turned  their  coats  with  the 
same  safe  self-complacency  as  Benton,  and  those  who  did  not 
do  so  had  other  reasons  for  it  than  the  vote  on  the  Gordon 
motion. 

What  Benton  had  said  on  the  part  which"  the  state  banks 
had  been  made  to  play  in  the  struggle  with  the  United  States 
Bank  was  not  incorrect,  but  it  was  only  half  the  truth.  Very 
many  of  those  who  had  taken  part  in  Jackson's  crusade  were 
interested,  not  so  much  in  the  abolition  of  the  United  States 
Bank  as  in  the  destruction  of  the  great  competitor  of  the 
rest  of  the  banks.  In  the  democratic  party,  too,  there  were 
many  whose  material  interests  were  most  intimately  connected 
with  the  weal  and  woe  of  the  banks.  The  divorce  between 
the  government  and  the  banks  now  appeared  to  them  as  the 
taking  away  of  the  advantage  which  the  banks  had  reaped 
from  the  government  deposits.  Others,  besides,  might  have 
shared,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  apprehensions  which  the 
'•  independent  treasury,"  politically  considered,  excited.  A 
complete  and  unreserved  defining  of  their  position  was  not 
to  be  expected  of  them.  They  were  far  removed  from  wish- 
ing to  desert  to  the  camp  of  the  whigs,  who  hoped  to  see  the 
national  bank  rise  again  on  the  ruins  of  the  great  crash. 
They  agreed  with  the  latter  only  in  not  wanting,  the  inde- 
pendent treasury,  and  on  this  -point  both  could  join  hands 
without  giving  up  their  party  in  the  rest.  Party  discipline 
could  not  be  enforced  with  the  severity  otherwise  peculiar  to 
the  democrats,  because  the  question  had  just  been  raised  by 
the  president's  initiative,  and  therefore  could  not  acquire, 
completely,  the  character  of  a  party  question  until  the  next 
elections.  Whether  it  would  lead  to  great  disarrangement 
of  party  conditions,  could  not  now  be  perceived.  It  did  not 
seem  entirely  impossible,  if  the  currents  among  the  masses 
corresponded  to  the  changes  of  position  in  congress. 


204  JAOKSON's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

The  separation  of  Calhoun  from  his  allies  hitherto  caused 
the  greatest  excitement.  The  reproach  made  by  the  latter 
that  he  had  gone  over,  bag  and  baggage,  to  the  camp  of  the 
administration,  was  unfounded.  It  was  no  longer  at  all  in 
his  power  to  belong  to  a  party  after  the  manner  of  most  pol- 
iticians. And  even  now  his  camp  was  his  own  tent;  only  he 
removed  it  near  to  the  fires  of  the  army  of  the  administra- 
tion. He,  indeed,  fought  with  the  latter,  but,  as  he  had 
always  done,  he  strove  only  for  himself  and  his  cause.  What 
was  an  end  to  his  present  companions  in  arms  was  to  him 
only  a  means  to  his  own  ends.  In  his  views  on  the  economic 
questions  there  was  much  that  was  right,  much  that  was 
confused,  and  some  things  which  were  absurd.^  History 
may  pass  them  over,  for  they  contain  no  new  truth  and 
exercised  no  determining  influence  on  the  history  of  his 
country.  The  substance  of  his  political  life  is  exhausted  in 
two  words,  slavery  and  state-sovereignty.  The  presumably 
favorable  opportunity  to  make  a  hard  fight  for  the  latter  it 
was  which  even  now  determined  his  resolve.  "The  govern- 
ment stands  in  a  position  disentangled  from  the  past,  and 
freer  to  choose  its  future  course  than  it  ever  has  been  since 
its  commencement.  We  are  about  to  take  a  fresh  start.  I 
move  off  under  the  State-Rights  banner,  and  go  in  the  direc- 
tion in  which  I  have  been  so  long  moving.  ...  I  shall 
use  my  best  efforts  to  give  an  ascendancy  to  the  great  con- 
servative principle  of  state  sovereignty  over  the  dangerous 
and  despotic  doctrine  of  consolidation."  ^ 

•  The  following  sentence  reminds  one  of  Jefferson's  great  saying,  that 
the  tree  of  freedom  required  to  be  manured  every  thirty  years  with  blood: 
"  So  necessary  is  the  redaction  of  the  income  to  reform,  that  I  am  disposed 
to  regard  it  as  a  political  maxim  in  free  states,  that  an  impoverished  treas- 
ury, once  in  a  generation,  at  least,  is  almost  indispensable  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  their  institutions  and  liberty."  Calh.'s  Works,  III,  pp.  398,  399. 
Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  91. 

•Ibid.,  III.,  p.  91. 


CALUOUX'S     MISTAKE.  205 

...       * 

It  is  surprising,  at  the  first  blush,  to  see  the  question  pre- 
sented in  this  aspect.  But  it,  in  fact,  fully  explains  Calhoun's 
change  of  alliance.  His  alliance  with  the  whigs,  he  says, 
was  directed  only  against  Jackson,  who,  in  his  arbitrary  gov- 
ernment, relied  on  an  entirely  personal  party.  This  was  now 
dissolved,  and  the  administration  weakened  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  nothing  more  was  to  be  apprehended  from  it. 
People  had  returned  to  the  point  at  which  the  process  of 
consolidation  had  begun,  and  at  which  alone,  from  the  nature 
of  the  the  thing,  it  could  have  a  beginning.  The  executive 
could  never  again  grow  powerful  enough  to  become  guilty 
of  acts  of  usurpation  unpunished,  unless  congress  had  first 
overstepped  its  legitimate  powers.  It  was  necessary  once 
more  now  to  guard  against  this  danger.  That  danger  im- 
pended now,  as  it  had  formerly,  from  the  whigs,  whom  he 
had  joined  only  to  break  Jackson's  autocracy.  They  were 
endeavoring  to  restore  the  connection  of  the  government 
with  the  money  power,  a  connection  which  had  been,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  dissolved  by  the  crash.  Yan  Buren,  who  was 
not  able  to  entertain  any  usurping  desire  himself,  wished  to 
hinder  them  in  this,  and  make  it  impossible  in  the  future. 
Hence  his  (Calhoun's)  place  was  evidently  at  the  side  of  the 
president.  It  was  not  he  that  had  changed,  but  there  was 
another  question  awaiting  its  decision.  The  "natural"  di- 
vision of  parties,  and  the  one  most  salutary  to  the  country, 
of  state-rights  and  national,  was  again  being  accomplished,' 
"Wlio  could,  then,  doubt  on  which  side  he  would  be  found  1 
Afterwards,  as  before,  he  was  an  "  honest  nullifier."  ^ 

' " .  .  .  The  political  parties  will  again  be  formed  on  the  old  and 
natural  division  of  state  rights  and  national,  which  divided  them  at  the 
commencement,  and  which  experience  has  shown  is  that  division  of  pari;y 
most  congenial  to  our  system,  and  most  favorable  to  its  successful  opera- 
tion." In  the  so-called  Edgefield  letter  of  November  3, 1837.  Niles,  LIII, 
pp.  217,  218. 

* "  He  belonged  to  no  party  but  the  state-rights  party;  and  wished  to 


206  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Calhoun  was  mistaken  in  one  point,  and  that  the  most 
material.  The  victory  of  the  administration  conld  never 
turn  to  the  advantage  of  the  state-righters.  The  independ- 
ent treasury  gave  the  administration  of  the  finances  a  really 
political  (staatlichen)  character  for  the  first  time,  and  it 
therefore  must  have  contributed  to  the  political  growing 
together  of  the  states  of  the  Union.  But  no  one  will  wish 
to  claim  that  Calhoun  had  not  really  deceived  himself  on 
this  point.  The  charge  brought  by  his  former  associates 
that  he  had  treacherously  abandoned  them  in  order  to  find  a 
new  prospect  for  his  personal  ambition,  is  destitute  of  all 
foundation.  His  description  of  the  situation  corresponds, 
in  everything,  with  the  facts.  Unquestionably,  he  says,  we 
should  have  been  able  entirely  to  overthrow  the  present  pos- 
sessors of  power  had  the  alliance  been  continued;  but  the 
victory  would  have  been  of  advantage  exclusively  to  our 
allies  and  their  cause.  Whatever  intermediate  stages  the 
struggle  might  go  through,  the  development  of  events  ended 
in  the  alternative  of  a  new  national  bank,  or  of  the  inde- 
pendent treasury. 

The  whigs  recognized  this  clearly,  and  they  therefore 
not  only  argued  against  the  proposals  of  the  president,  but 
they  denounced  them  with  a  want  of  moderation  which  was 
an  insult  both  to  decency  and  reason.  The  message  was  in- 
tended to  be  a  declaration  of  war  against  all  banks.^  The 
government  wished  to  dissolve  its  connection  with  the  peo- 
ple; the  money  of  the  people  was  too  bad  for  it.     Its  aristo- 

be  considered  nothing  more  than  a  plain  and  honest  nullifier."    Calh.'s 
Works,  III,  p.  101. 

'  "  The  banks  are  not  left  to  the  mercy  of  their  creators,  but  they  are 
to  be  ground  by  the  tender  mercies  of  this  administration,  which  brought 
them  to  the  very  condition  which  is  now  calculated  to  render  them  odious, 
and  to  furnish  the  pretext  for  oppressing  them  and  their  debtors."  H.  A. 
Wise,  of  Virginia,  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  Deb.  of  C!ongr.,  XIII, 
p.  493. 


THE   PKESroENT   AST)   THE   WHIGS.  207 

cratic  fingers  should  touch  only  gold  and  silver,  even  if  in 
consequence  the  money  of  the  people  should  become  worth- 
less scraps  of  paper.  What  was  now  wanted  was  not  an  in- 
dependent treasuryship,  but  a  treasury-bank.  Tlie  executive 
now  demanded  to  have  the  purse  as  well  as  the  sword  of  the 
people.  To  give  it  would  be  the  beginning  of  the  end;  and 
the  fathers  of  the  republic  would  have  shed  their  blood  in 
vain.  Pictures  were  drawn  of  the  unlimited  despotism 
which  would  then  place  its  brazen  foot  on  the  neck  of  the 
people,  pictures  which  remind  one  of  the  horrible  dramas 
in  the  theatrical  stalls  at  European  fairs  to  which  the  care 
for  the  higher  intellectual  education  of  the  masses  is  left' 
And  before  all,  it  was  done  by  the  great  head  of  the  whigs. 
His  taste  was  too  good  to  permit  him  to  paint  with  the  white- 

'  I  would  ask  leave  to  give  here  a  somewhat  lengthy  illustration  of  the 
eloquence  in  which  the  average  politician  is  wont  to  clothe  his  official 
pathos.  Naylor,  of  Pennsylvania,  said  in  the  house  of  representatives: 
"Sir,  this  scheme  proposes  to  place  in  the  hands  of  individuals  who  are 
dependent  alone  on  the  will  of  the  president  for  their  continuance  in  office, 
all,  yes  all  the  countless  miUions  of  the  money  of  this  government,  for  dis- 
bursement and  safe-keeping.  These  men  are  to  receive  it,  hold  it,  use  it, 
when  and  as  they  please,  with  no  earthly  barrier  between  it  and  the  temp- 
tation to  appropriate  it  to  their  own  uses,  which  the  personal  custody  of 
such  immense  treasures  must  offer,  than  the  feeble  restraints  of  poor,  weak, 
fcilUble  human  nature,  and  the  fear  of  the  consequences  which  might  result 
from  an  ultimate  detection.     .    .    . 

"  I  ask,  what  is  it?  Why,  sir,  it  is  a  bill  for  arresting  the  flow  of  ooi 
prosperity  —  for  subverting  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  repubUc  — 
a  biU  for  laying  the  comer-stone  of  despotism.  How  do  those  in  power 
recommend  it  to  us?  What  arguments  do  they  urge  in  favor  of  its  adop- 
tion? '  Oh,'  they  say,  '  it  is  no  new  scheme.  It  exists  in  France;  it  flour- 
ishes in  Prussia  and  Austria — it  has  grown  into  full  and  vigoroas  perfec- 
tion in  Russia.  It  prevails  in  Turkey,  and  in  every  despotism  of  the  new 
and  old  world.' 

"  My  heart  shudders,  my  blood  curdles  at  their  recommendations.  In 
every  country  under  heaven  where  such  a  system  prevails,  the  people  are 
trampled  on  and  plundered  of  their  rights;  ground  down  to  the  very  dust 
by  the  awful  despotism  of  their  rulers;  bought  and  sold  like  cattle  with  the 


208  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

washer's  brush,  but  in  his  anger  and  zeal  he  overshot  the 
mark  further  than  any  one  else.  Clay  declared  the  presi- 
dent's project  unconstitutional,  and  its  execution  simply  im- 
possible.* 

earth,  persecuted  by  power,  plundered  by  these  very  sub-treasurers, '  chained 
to  the  brutes  and  fettered  to  the  soil.'    .    .    . 

"  Where  am  I?  Is  it  possible  that  here,  in  this  mighty  capital  of  the 
only  free  republic  on  earth,  with  the  deeds  of  our  gallant  fathers  still  green 
in  our  memories,  with  here  and  there  one  of  their  lingering  associates  now 
gazing  upon  our  deliberations,  and  the  thunders  of  Torktown  yet  ringing 
in  our  ears  —  is  it  possible,  I  say,  under  these  circumstances,  that  we  can 
calmly  listen  to  a  proposition  to  abandon  the  settled  policy  of  our  govern- 
ment from  its  beginning  to  this  day,  despise  and  denounce  the  wisdom  of 
its  immortal  founder,  reject  a  course  which  has  secured  an  unexampled 
prosperity  to  our  country,  and  the  utmost  stretch  of  liberty  to  ourselves, 
and  turn  back  and  affectionately  embrace  —  hug  to  our  bosoms,  as  jewels 
above  all  price,  the  barbarous  institutions  of  the  dark  and  benighted  des- 
potisms of  the  old  world!  Are  we  to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  counsels  of 
our  revolutionary  sages,  and  receive  for  our  guide  the  arbitrary  decrees  of 
autocrats  and  tyrants?  Sir,  is  the  republican  seed,  scattered  far  and  wide 
by  our  immortal  sires,  to  be  eradicated  with  our  own  hands  —  and  are  we 
to  transplant  into  our  fertile  soil  the  sickly  shoots  of  despotism,  and  nurse, 
and  water,  and  cherish  them  into  health  and  vigor,  and  fructification? 
Heaven  forbid."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  539,  540. 

* "  We  are  told  that  it  is  necessary  to  separate,  divorce  the  government 
from  the  banks.  Let  us  not  be  deluded  by  sounds.  Senators  might  as 
well  talk  of  separating  the  government  from  the  states,  or  from  the  people, 
or  from  the  country.  We  are  aU — people  —  states  —  Union  —  banks, 
bound  up  and  interwoven  together,  united  in  fortune  and  destiny,  and  all, 
all  entitled  to  the  protecting  care  of  a  parental  government.  You  may  as 
well  attempt  to  make  the  government  breathe  a  different  air,  drink  a  dif- 
ferent water,  be  lit  and  warmed  by  a  different  sun  from  the  people !  A  gov- 
ernment, an  official  corps  —  the  servants  of  the  people  —  glittering  in  gold, 
and  the  people  themselves — their  masters — buried  in  ruin  and  surrounded 
with  rags.  .  .  .  Having,  I  think,  Mr.  President,  shown  that  the 
project  of  the  administration  is  neither  desirable  nor  practicable,  nor  within 
the  constitutional  power  of  the  general  government,  nor  just ;  and  that  it 
is  contrary  to  the  habits  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  is  danger- 
ous to  their  liberties,  I  might  here  dose  my  remarks."  Clay's  Speeches, 
U,  pp.  328,  333,  334. 


LNFLUENCE   OF  THE   CRISIS.  209 

The  declamatory  part  of  the  speeches  naturally  entered  at 
one  ear  and  went  out  at  the  other,  and  the  argument,  to  saj 
tlie  least,  did  not  compel  conviction.  In  the  senate,  the  ad- 
ministration did  not  succeed  in  keeping  its  party  together 
entirely;  but  the  so-called  sub-treasury  bill  was,  notwithstand- 
iu<;,  passed  by  twenty-six  against  twenty  votes.*  In  the  house 
oi  representa,tives,  the  defection  was  great  enough  to  defeat 
tiic  bill  for  this  session.  The  so-called  conservatives,  who 
separated  themselves  from  the  administration  on  the  ques- 
tion, by  no  means  joined  in  the  wild  cry  of  the  opposition. 
They  thus  far  avoided  a  formal  decision.  Clark,  of  ISTew 
York,  made  a  motion  to  lay  the  bill  on  the  table,  and  based 
his  proposition  on  his  desire  to  learn  what  the  views  of  his 
constituents  on  it  were.  This  motion  was  adopted  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  nineteen  against  one  hundred  and 
seven  .^ 

The  decision  was  formally  postponed,  but,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  president  had  suffered  a  defeat,  and  everything 
seemed  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  the  future  had  still 
harder  blows  in  store  for  him.  The  fall  elections  of  1837 
showed  what  a  great  political  influence  the  crash  had  had. 
Above  all,  a  complete  change  had  taken  place  in  the  most 
powerful  state  in  the  Union.  Kew  York,  whose  politicians 
had  demanded  as  a  right  that  one  of  her  sons  should  be  ele- 
vated to  the  presidential  chair,  now  turned  her  back  on  that 
very  son.  The  party  organs  admitted  that,  in  a  general  elec- 
tion, the  party  could  not  have  stood  the  storm  which  was 
raging  over  the  country." 

« Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  448. 

•Deb.  of  Congr,,  XIII,  p.  542. 

* ''  In  the  late  convulsion,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  nor  have  we  ever  denied, 
that  the  democratic  party  was  shaken  to  its  center.  Had  a  presidential 
election  fallsn  upon  that  period,  it  would  probably  have  been  overthrown. 
No  party  could  ever  successfully,  in  a  general  election,  face  such  a  tempest 
as  then  swept,  raging  and  howling,  over  the  land."  The  "  Democratic  Re- 
14 


210  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

The  twentj-fifth  congress  was  under  the  fresh  influence 
of  these  elections  when  it  met  in  its  first  regular  session  on 
the  4:th  of  December.  It  was  manifest,  notwithstanding, 
that  the  administration  had  not  lost  ground,  at  least  in  re- 
lation to  the  independent  treasury.  If  the  speeches  of  the 
opposition  were  still  far  from  being  strictly  moderate  and 
ad  rem^  they  no  longer  endeavored  to  brand  the  president 
with  the  mark  of  Cain.  The  result  was  the  same.  The  bill 
was  again  passed  in  the  senate,  and  the  house  again  laid  it  on 
the  table.^  ISTothing  was  done  to  put  an  end  to  the  provi- 
sional condition  of  the  admiuistration  of  the  public  moneys, 
and  just  as  little  progress  was  made  in  the  general  financial 
question.  The  president  was  obliged,  on  the  10th  of  May, 
1838,  to  make  the  confession,  less  disgraceful  to  himself  than 
to  the  country,  before  congress,  that  the  government  threat- 
ened to  become  insolvent,  although  it  had  deposited  over 
$28,000,000  with  the  states,  and  had  claims  against  banks 
and  individuals  of  over  $15,000,000.^^  Resort  was  had  again 
to  the  palliative  of  treasury-notes  for  help  in  the  immediate 
need  of  the  government;  and  as  to  the  rest,  the  government 
held  fast  to  its  policy  of  "hard  money"  in  relation  to  the 
public  income. 

If  we  were,  to  form  our  judgment  only  from  what  the  col- 
lection of  the  laws  of  the  time  affords  us,  it  would  seem  that 
the  controversy  on  the  economic  questions  in  July,  1838,  re- 
mained precisely  where  it  was  left  at  the  close  of  the  extra- 
ordinary session  in  October,  1837.  But  the  situation  had, 
nevertheless,  greatly  changed.  The  crutches  proposed  by  the 
administration  carried  the  government  through  the  hard 
times.     Afterwards   as  well   as  before,  the  officers  of  the 

view, "  Sept.,  1838,  p.  5.  In  the  December  number,  p.  294,  the  same  thing 
is  said  in  almost  stronger  terms. 

'  By  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  six  against  ninety-eight.  Deb.  of  Congr., 
Xin,  p.  655. 

» Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1200. 


BETTIENINO   PEOSPEKITY.  211 

treasury  had  to  be  governed  by  the  provisions  of  the 
circular  of  July  11th,  1836;  and  so  far  as  the  main  ques- 
tion was  concerned,  no  legally  regulated  relations  were 
attained,  but  the  actual  provisional  situation  was,  at  bot- 
tom, Yan  Buren's  independent  treasury.  In  no  particu- 
lar had  the  opposition  been  able  to  gain  a  step,  and  in 
the  one  main  question,  it  could  place  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
the  president  only  in  as  much  as  the  people  learned  by  ex- 
perience to  look  upon  its  prophecies  as  illusions.  If,  during 
the  first  moments  of  excitement,  they  had  not  attained  better 
results,  what  could  they  expect  when  dejection  began  to  take 
the  place  of  an  over-strained  confidence?  And  this  revolu- 
tion of  feeling  took  place  almost  as  rapidly  as  the  coming  of 
the  crash.  Even  in  the  fall  of  1837  everything  was  life  and 
activity.^  The  elasticity  of  the  people  did  not  forsake  them, 
and  rich  crops  reminded  even  the  most  pusillanimous  that, 
considering  the  boundless  resources  of  the  country,  discour- 
agement was  a  sin.  But  the  president  committed  a  serious 
error,  when,  in  his  annual  message  of  the  4:th  of  December, 
1838,  he  said  he  saw  in  the  vigorous  action  of  the  people  only 
the  return  of  the  country  to  its  normal  condition.''  The  les- 
son which  lay  in  the  crisis  of  1837  was  not  entirely  lost  on 

'"Sir,  the  country  is  recovering  fast  from  the  violent  and  sudden  con- 
vulsion into  which  it  has  been  lately  thrown.  It  cannot  otherwise  be,  when 
we  consider  the  inunense  resources  of  this  vast  continent,  wielded,  as  they 
are,  by  a  people  whose  industry  and  enterprise  acknowledge  no  other  limit 
than  the  very  bounds  of  the  earth."  Mason,  of  Virginia,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  Oct.  11,  1837.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  531. 

* "  Nor  is  it  less  gratifying  to  find  that  the  general  business  of  the  com- 
munity, deeply  affected  as  it  has  been,  is  reviving  with  additional  vigor, 
chastened  by  the  lessons  of  the  past,  and  animated  by  the  hopes  of  the 
future.  By  the  curtailment  of  paper  issues;  by  curbing  the  sangfuine  and 
adventurous  spirit  of  speculation;  and  by  the  honorable  application  of  all 
available  means  to  the  fulfillment  of  obUgations,  confidence  has  been  re- 
stored both  at  home  and  abroad,  and  ease  and  facility  secured  to  all  opera- 
tions of  trade."    Ibid.,  p.  1207. 


212  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texa8. 

the  people,  but  it  was  just  as  far  from  having  come  home 
to  them  as  completely  as  it  should  have. 

The  excitement  of  speculation  did  not  reach  the  same 
height  as  before  the  crash,  but  the  extent  land  intensity  of 
the  crisis  would  be  entirely  inexplicable  if  the  economic  situ- 
ation from  the  summer  of  1838  to  the  summer  of  1839  bore 
witness  only  to  the  fact  of  returning  health.  The  imports 
during  the  fiscal  year  (September)  1839  were  still  twenty- 
four  millions  less  than  those  of  1886;  but  they  had  increased 
forty-three  millions  as  compared  with  the  previous  year.' 
Money  was  again  as  plenty  as  immediately  before  the  crisis.* 
The  banks  knew  how  to  reap  advantage  directly  from  the 
crisis.  Only  the  New  York  banks,  which  were  required  by 
a  state  law  to  resume  payments  in  specie  on  the  10th  of 
May,  1838,  began  to  contract  immediately,  and  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  contraction  corresponded  really  to  the  over- 
speculation  which  had  preceded.  The  amount  of  bank 
credits  fell,  in  1837-8,  from  $525,000,000  to  $485,500,000, 
but  the  number  of  banks  rose  from  six  hundred  and  thirty- 
four  to  six  hundred  and  sixty- three,  and  their  capital  from 
$290,000,000  to  $317,000,000.''  The  invitation  of  New  York 
to  a  general  bank  convention,  to  fix  a  date  for  the  resump- 
tion of  specie  payments  for  the  whole  country,  was  not 
accepted,  because  the  United  States  bank  of  Pennsylvania, 
ostensibly  out  of  consideration  for  the  smaller  banks,  desired 
to  continue  the  status  quo  longer.  Not  till  August,  1838, 
was  it  forced  t^  follow  the  example  of  New  York  and  of  the 
banks  which  the  latter  had  immediately  drawn  after  it.  But 
it  had  not  turned  the  past  year  to  account  in  such  a  way  as  to 
limit  itself  now  to  the  narrower  roads  of  legitimate  business. 

'  ■  «1836,  $168,233,675;  1837,  $119,134,255;  1838,  $101,264,609;  1839, 
$144,597,607. 

•1836,  $205,000,000;  1837,  $222,000,000;  1838,  $203,000,000;  1839, 
$222,000,000.    The  numbers  are  taken  from  Grosrenor,  p.  29. 

•W.G.Sumner,  p.  123. 


REVIVAL   OF   TKADE.  213 

It  })ref erred  the  game  of  the  gambler;  and  its  means,  and  espe- 
cially its  credit,  were  still  great  enough  to  bring  on  the  calam- 
ity which  was  already  threatening  the  country,  within  a  year, 
in  such  magnitude,  that,  in  certain  localities,  some  branches 
of  business  felt  it  even  more  severely  than  the  crisis  of  1837.' 
But  there  were,  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  only  too  many 
ready  to  join  the  set  whose  merry  melodies  the  distressed 
bank  played  so  charmingly.  All  kinds  of  American  paper 
again  found  the  best  market  in  London.  Neither  the  means 
nor  the  desire  of  apparently  extensive  speculation  were  want- 
ing.' Even  the  proceeds  from  the  public  lands  again  in- 
creased from  $3,000,000  to   $7,000,000.^ 

'  "  The  country  was  then  (end  of  1837)  in  a  condition  to  resume  the  pay- 
ment of  specie  thi-ough  its  banks.  But  the  United  States  Bank  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  some  other  great  institutions,  were  not  ready.  During  the 
years  of  high  prices,  they  had  lent  then:  capital  on  paper  which  rested 
only  on  the  exaggerated  and  imreal  values  of  that  period,  and  an  immedi- 
ite  return  to  specie  payments  would  have  shown  that  their  capital  had 
been  very  seriously  impaired.  The  United  States  Bank  of  Pennsylvania, 
therefore,  at  first  opposed  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and  subse- 
quently, when  compelled  to  come  into  the  arrangement,  it  seems  to  have 
adopted  the  bold  measure  of  attempting  to  bring  back  the  unnatural  state 
of  things  which  had  existed  before  May,  1837;  hoping  that,  by  means  of 
high  prices  and  unhmited  credit,  it  might  be  able  to  gradually  withdraw 
itself  from  its  dangerous  position.  It  entered  largely  into  the  purchase  of 
state  stocks,  speculations  in  cotton,  and  other  transactions.  It  was  impos- 
sible, in  the  nature  of  things,  that  this  scheme  should  succeed,  but  it  had 
some  effect.  Many  began  to  think  that  the  reverses  of  1837  were  small 
affairs,  and  that  they  were  already  overcome.  .  .  .  Our  foreign  com- 
mercial debt  had  been  paid  with  so  much  promptness  that  European  capi- 
talists formed  a  very  high  opinion  both  of  our  resources  and  our  honor,  and 
they  took  the  stocks  of  states  as  freely  as  if  they  had  been  gold  and  silver." 
The  "North  American  Review,"  Jan.,  1844,  pp.  120,  121.  See,  more  in 
detail,  Thu^;y  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  365-370. 

* "  Bonds  of  all  kinds  issued  by  the  Bank  of  United  States,  by  the  vari- 
ous states  in  the  Union,  and  by  numerous  private  undertakings,  were 
poured  upon  the  English  market  and  found  eager  purchasers."  Gilbart, 
Banking,  p.  218,  cited  in  W.  G.  Sumner,  p.  147. 

'  Grosvenor,  p.  36.    Adams  vmtes  on  the  14th  of  June,  1838 :    *'  Tlie  thirst 


214   JACKBON's  ADMINISTBATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXA5. 

With  the  revival  of  trade,  the  democratic  party  also  re- 
covered from  the  blow  which  it  had  received  from  the  crasli. 
True,  it  was  defeated  in  Kew  York  in  the  fall  elections  of  1838, 
but  the  majority  of  the  whigs  was  reduced  by  from  five 
thousand  to  six  thousand,  as  compared  with  the  previous 
year.  In  several  states  which  the  democrats  had  either  lost, 
or  in  which  they  had  been  long  in  the  minority,  they  obtained 
a  preponderance,  and  their  majority  increased  in  others.^ 
One  of  the  principal  organs  of  the  party  was  of  opinion, 
in  1838,  that  the  whigs  were  "  on  the  eve  of  total  dissolution  ;"'^ 

of  a  tiger  for  blood  is  the  fittest  emblem  for  the  rapacity  with  which  the 
members  of  all  the  new  states  fly  at  the  public  lands.  The  constituents  upon 
whom  they  depend  are  all  settlers,  or  tame  and  careless  spectators  of  the 
pillage.  They  are  themselves  enormous  speculators  and  land  jobbers.  It 
were  a  vain  attempt  to  resist  them  here  [in  the  house  of  representatives]. 
.  .  .  Crary  and  Casey  and  the  western  members,  whose  tactics  are  to 
abuse  the  speculators  without  mercy  in  debate,  and  to  oppose  every  possible 
expedient  to  guard  against  them."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  19. 

'  The  "Democratic  Review "  describes  the  result  of  the  summer  and  fall 
elections  of  1838  as  follows:  In  New  Jersey,  the  whig  majority  of  1837 
was  changed  into  a  democratic  majority;  in  Pennsylvania,  the  democrats, 
after  a  severe  contest,  carried-  off  the  victory  from  the  ruling  party  with 
about  ten  thousand  votes;  Maryland,  which  had  a  federalist  governor 
'from  time  immemorial,'  elected  a  man  who  had  distinguished  himself 
in  the  state  legislature  as  an  advocate  of  the  independent  treasuryship; 
Delaware,  which  had  been  laitherto  decidedly  federalist,  sent  a  democrat 
to  the  house  of  representatives;  in  South  Carolina  there  is  scarcely  any 
opposition;  in  Georgia  the  parties  wrangle  over  local  questions,  but  in 
general  favor  the  independent  treasury;  in  Illinois  and  ]\Iichigan  the  dem- 
ocrats are  making  progress;  in  Missouri  and  Arkansas,  their  majority  is 
greatly  increased;  Ohio,  where  Van  Buren  was  defeated  in  the  presiden- 
tial election,  voted  democratic  with  a  majority  of  about  six  thousand. 

*  "Without  indulging  in  the  common  inflated  exaggeration  of  partisan- 
ship, we  cannot  avoid  the  conclusion  to  which  our  calmest  reflection  on  the 
past  progress  and  present  aspect  of  our  politics  irresistibly  leads  our  judg- 
meat,  that  the  '  whig  party '  is,  at  this  moment,  on  the  eve  of  total  disso- 
lution ...  the  defeat  of  the  present  year  is  an  overthrow  and  a 
dissolution  of  the  whig  party  which  admits  of  no  recovery  and  no  hope." 
The  "Democratic  Review,"  Nov.,  1838,-  pp.  279,  282.    • 


A  SECOND   OATASTEOPHB.  215 

and  in  October,  1839,  it  was  asked  whether  they  could  "pre- 
tend to  maintain  any  longer  even  a  show  of  regular  oppo- 
sition." ^ 

But  it  was  not,  indeed,  as  bad  as  this.  The  twenty-sixth 
cougi'ess,  which  met  on  the  16th  of  December,  1839,  in  its 
first  session,  was  far  removed  from  considering  that  the 
whigs  could  only  make  themselves  ridiculous  if  they  did  not 
simply  surrender  the  field  to  their  opponents.  Not  until 
the  eleventh  ballot  was  a  speaker  elected,  and  R.  M.  T. 
Hunter,  of  Yirginia,  a  member  of  the  opposition,  but  a 
friend  of  the  independent  treasury,  was  chosen.^ 

The  result  of  this  stubborn  electoral  campaign  was  all  the 
more  significant  as,  in  the  mean  time,  the  second  commercial 
catastrophe  had  occurred.  The  price  of  cotton,  which  had 
risen  to  sixteen  cents,  commenced  at  the  beginning  of  the  sum- 
mer of  1839  to  fall  again.  The  United  States  bank  of  Penn- 
sylvania, which  had  speculated  largely  in  cotton,  had  to  make 
extraordinary  efforts  not  to  suspend  specie  payments  again. 
Considering  the  unsettled  condition  of  the  whole  country,  the 
comparatively  weak  blow  had  a  fatal  effect.  In  the  west, 
which  was  poor  in  capital,  especially  in  Michigan  and  Illi- 
nois, bankruptcies  were  very  numerous.  In  Mississippi  and 
Alabama,  where  the  banks  with  their  borrowed  capital  had 

•  The  article  is  entitled  "  The  Dissolution  of  the  Whig  Party,"  and  be- 
gins with  the  following  sentences:  "  Well,  the  summer  and  autumn  elec- 
tions are  now  for  the  most  part  over,  and  what  have  the  whigs  left  to  say 
for  themselves,  and  their  exhausted  and  exploded  cause?  Will  they,  can 
they  pretend  to  maintain  any  longer  even  a  show  of  regular  opposition? 
Will  they,  can  they  attempt  seriously  to  contest  the  coming  presidential 
election?  We  find  it  difiBcult  to  imagine  that  they  will  or  can."  The 
"  Democratic  Review,"  Nov.,  1839,  p,  355. 

•  •  He  says  himself  in  his  speech  to  the  house :  "  Called  as  I  have  been  to 
this  high  station,  not  so  much  from  any  merits  of  my  own  as  from  the  in- 
dependence of  my  position,  I  shall  feel  it  as  especially  due  from  me  to  you  to 
preside  as  the  speaker,  not  of  a  party,  but  of  the  house."  Deb.  of  Congr., 
XIV,  p.  5. 


216  Jackson's  adm:inisteation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

also,  in  great  part,  obtained  control  of  the  cotton  trade,  the 
situation  was  simplj  lamentable.^  When,  therefore,  the 
United  States  bank  of  Pennsylvania  was  closed  on  the  10th 
of  October,  it  dragged  nearly  ail  the  banks  in  the  south  and 
west  after  it.^ 

The  crisis  was  neither  as  general  as  in  1837,  nor  was  the 
consternation  of  the  people  cansed  by  it  expressed  with 
nearly  as  much  violence.  But  the  discouragement  was 
great-er,  and  its  effects  lasted  longer.^    People  now  saw  more 

'An  account  from  New  York,  in  the  "  London  Bankers'  Circular"  of  July 
12,  says:  "  The  condition  of  the  banks  in  the  south  is  nowhere  such  as  to 
enable  them  to  grant  increased  accommodation;  and,  as  you  must  have 
seen,  those  in  Alabama  and  Mississippi  (which  together  furnish  more  than 
half  of  our  entire  [cotton]  crop  by  enumeration  of  bales,  and  fully  two- 
thirds  in  actual  weight,  have  yet  to  resume  specie  payment.  In  fact,  the 
commercial  credit  of  those  two  states  may  be  said  to  be  wholly  annihilated 
for  the  present.  To  avoid  execution,  not  less  than  two  himdred  planta- 
tions in  Mississippi  have  been  abandoned,  and  the  negroes  carried  off  to 
Texas!  where,  for  any  purpose  they  can  serve  in  raising  cotton  for  yeai"s  to 
come,  they  might  as  weU  have  been  locked  up  by  the  creditors  of  those 
planters  in  jail,  as  hundreds  and  thousands  of  others  have  been  at  the  time 
they  ought  to  have  been  employed  in  preparation  for  the  ensuing  crop. 

"  Every  one  who  has  been  in  Mississippi  says,  the  reports  of  distress  are  far 
short  of  the  reality.  On  returning  'his  writs  unexecuted,  the  sheriff  uni- 
versally indorses  them  G.  T.,  gone  to  Texas."  Hazard,  U.  S.  Commerc 
and  Statist.  Reg.,  Aug.,  1839,  Vol.  I.,  No.  10,  p.  159. 

*  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1237.  Of  850  banks,  343  dosed  entirely,  and  62 
m  part.    W.  G.  Sumner,  p.  152. 

'  The  "  North  American  Review,"  Jan.,  1844,  p.  121,  gives  the  following 
description :  "All  property  seemed  for  a  while  to  have  lost  its  value.  .  .  . 
In  some  of  the  new  states,  it  was  difficult  even  for  the  wealthy  to  obtain 
money  for  the  daily  uses  of  life.  We  have  heard  of  farmers,  owning  large 
and  well  stocked  farms,  who  could  hardly  get  money  enough  to  pay  the 
postage  on  a  letter.  They  had  scarcely  any  currency,  and  most  of  that 
which  they  had  was  bad.  In  the  commercial  states,  matters  were  but  httle  . 
better.  Failures  were  almost  innumerable.  Trade  had  fallen  off,  and, 
when  prosecuted,  was  hazardous.  A  deep  gloom  settled  upon  men's 
minds.  Governments  felt  it  as  much  as  individuals.  Their  ordinary  re- 
Bources  were  diminished.    Their  means  of  obtaining  extraordinary  suppUes 


THE  WHIGS  AND  A  NATIONAL  BANK.  217 

clearly,  and,  moreover,  the  causes  of  the  new  misfortune 
were  more  apparent.  It  was  no  longer  possible  to  make  a 
scapegoat  of  the  administration.  The  president,  on  the 
other  hand,  could,  not  without  reason,  use  the  new  crisis  as 
an  argumentum  ad  hominem,  in  defense  of  his  old  princi- 
ple, that  if  there  were  a  connection  of  the  finances  with  the 
banks,  the  interests  of  the  states  would  always  remain,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  the  plaything  of  private  speculation. 
Even  if  it  was  somewhat  strongly  expressed,  there  was  much 
truth  in  his  assertion,  that  the  banks  did  not  now  appeal  to 
an  actual  necessity,  but  considered  the  suspension  of  specie 
payments  sufficiently  justified  by  its  alleged  expediency.^ 

It  was  evident  that  no  reasoning  and  no  experience  was 
able  to  shake  the  faith  of  the  whigs  in  the  gospel  of  a  national 
bank.  On  a  question  which  is  one  of  the  most  material 
differences  in  the  constitution  of  parties,  a  whole  party  can 
never,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  be  set  right.  Only 
when  the  actual  development  of  events  has  made  it  im- 
possible to  maintain  the  question  any  longer  as  a  party 
question,  can  the  right  understanding  of  it  become  entirely 
general:  resignation  to  the  inevitable  is  in  such  case  the 
condition  precedent  of  knowledge.  But  in  a  democratic  re- 
were  lessened  in  proportion  to  the  general  distress.  The  physical  means 
of  making  pajTnent  for  their  debts  were  wanting  in  some  states,  for  there 
was  no  money  to  be  had.  The  people  were  amazed  at  the  extent  of  their 
own  disasters,  and  afraid  to  act  in  any  way,  lest  they  should  run  into  new 
mistakes." 

'  "They  are  not  driven  to  it  by  the  exhibition  of  a  loss  of  public  confi- 
dence, or  of  a  sudden  pressure  from  their  depositors  or  noteholders;  but 
they  excuse  themselves  by  alleging  that  the  cun-ent  of  business  and  ex- 
change with  foreign  countries,  which  draws  the  precious  metals  from  their 
vaults,  would  require,  in  order  to  meet  it,  a  larger  curtailment  of  their 
loans  to  a  comparatively  small  portion  of  the  community  than  it  will  be 
convenient  for  them  to  bear,  or,  perhaps,  safe  for  the  banks  to  exact.  The 
plea  has  ceased  to  be  one  of  necessity.  Convenience  and  policy  are  now 
deemed  sufficient  to  warrant  these  institutions  in  disregarding  their  solemn 
obligations."    Statesm.'s  Man,,  11,  p.  1236. 


2l8 


JACKSON  8  ADMINISTRATION  —  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 


public,  parties  generally  almost  balance  each  other,  so  that 
the  weight  which  turns  the  scales  is  the  small  minority  of 
the  undecjded,  that  is,  those  in  whom  the  formation  of  their 
judgment  keeps  pace  with  the  development  of  facts.  Hence, 
a  change  of  opinion  by  a  few  is  frequently  sufficient  to  bring 
the  laws  into  harmony  with  the  actual  development  of  things, 
and  thus  to  make  both  the  former  and  the  latter  irreversible. 
"Whether  this  point  had  been  really  reached  already,  only 
the  next  years  could  show.  The  sequel  proved  that  both 
parties  were  at  the  time  wonderfully  deceived  as  to  the  true 
situation  of  affairs.  The  whigs  did  not  recognize  that  at 
the  moment  that  this  administration  carried  the  independent 
treasury  through,  the  old  struggle  was  finally  decided :  what- 
ever fate  future  congresses  might  have  in  store  for  the 
law  of  the  ith  of  July,  1840,*  the  finances  and  the  banks 
could  never  again  be  yoked  together  after  their  virtual  sepa- 
ration by  the  crisis  of  1837  had,  after  the  crisis  of  1839, 
received  the  sanction  of  law.  And  the  democrats  did  not 
understand  that  this  question  had  been  taken  from  the  list  of 
party  questions  proper,  by  the  crisis  of  1839,  and  had  ac- 
quired a  character  entirely  peculiar  to  itself.  They,  indeed, — 
and  above  all  the  president,  —  had  good  reason  to  rejoice  and 
to  congratulate  themselves  that  the  measure  on  which  the 
administration  had  staked  its  reputation  had  been  carried 
out;  but  any  inference  from  this  to  the  prospects  of  the 
party,  and  especially  of  the  president,  in  the  future,  were 
baseless.  Yan  Biiren  had  won  a  brilliant  victory,  and  placed 
his  country  under  lasting  obligations  to  him;  but,  even  at 
the  moment  of  triumph,  his  and  his  party's  overthrow  was 
beyond  doubt  when  they  declared  that  they  would  be  satis- 
fied in  the  next  presidential  election  with  nothing  short  of 
the  complete  destruction  of  their  opponents.^ 

•  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  385. 

'  "  It  will  not  be  enough,  in  the  approaching  presidential  contest,  that  tha 


TAN  BUKEN    AXD    SLAVERY.  219 


CHAPTER  IV. 

VAN  BUREN'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

(Continued.) 

II.   The  Slavery  Question. 

Yan  Buren,  in  his  inaugural  address,  had  not  devoted  a 
single  word  to  the  impending  economic  dangers.  In  broad 
and  general  terms,  he  drew  a  picture  of  the  wonderful  devel- 
opment of  the  Union  during  the  half  century  which  had 
elapsed  since  its  origin.  With  a  just  pride,  the  president 
alluded  to  the  many  dangers  happily  surmounted,  as  a  proof 
that  the  faith  in  a  great  future  for  the  republic  had  a  firm 
foundation  in  the  character  of  the  people  and  in  their  insti- 
tutions. Only  on  one  question  did  he  enter  more  into  detail, 
and  the  confidence  with  which  he  represented  it  as  a  problem 
already  solved  was  qualified  by  a  ponderous  if.  To  abide 
blindly  and  inviolably  by  the  compromise  of  the  fathers  was, 
in  his  opinion,  the  only  possible  guaranty  tliat  that  question 
would  never  be  able  to  endanger  the  Union ;  and  this  guar- 
anty he  considered  entirely  sufficient.    The  proof  of  this  he 

democratic  party  shall  merely  prevail  by  an  ordinary  majority.  With  such 
a  result,  we  shall  acknowledge  ourselves  dissatisfied,  disappointed.  Wo 
must  teach  our  opponents  such  a  lesson  as  they  have  never  yet  received. 
We  must  administer  a  rebuke,  a  punishment,  not  soon  to  be  forgotten,  for 
this  gi-eat  national  insult  by  which  they,  as  an  organized  party,  have 
afforded  their  last  and  worst  illustration  of  that  old  and  profound  contempt 
for  the  intelligence  of  the  people  which  has  always  been,  as  it  will  continue 
to  be,  the  invariable  source  of  all  their  faults  and  all  their  follies.  Our 
struggle,  we  repeat,  must  not  be  now  for  mere  victory.  Of  that,  indeed, 
.  .  .  we  cannot  entertain  a  single  possible  doubt."  The  "  Democratio 
Review,"  June,  1840,  p.  475. 


220  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

found  in  the  fact  that  it  now,  for  the  first  time,  disturbed 
the  peace  of  the  country.* 

The  man  who,  in  the  struggle  for  Missouri,  had  played  a  cer- 
tain part,  could  not  write  such  nonsense  in  good  faith.  No 
matter  how  small  his  historical  information  might  be,  he  had 
himself  helped  make  the  history  of  his  country,  and  he  was 
too  wise  to  imagine  that  the  whole  history  of  the  slavery 
question  could  be  wiped  out  by  a  silly  assertion.  He  might, 
like  so  many  others,  be  completely  satisfied  that  the  consti- 
tutional compromises  on  the  slavery  question  could  be  a 
permanent  arbitration  of  the  matter.  Hence  he,  perhaps, 
saw  no  serious  danger  to  the  country  in  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. But  he  evidently  recognized  how  menacing  a  rock  it 
was  to  all  politicians,  and  the  fear  of  striking  against  it 
himself  dictated  to  him  that  absurd  exaggeration.  Decided 
as  was  his  declaration  that  he  wished  to  remain  in  the  path 
hitherto  followed,  that  is,  to  guide  his  bark  by  the  compass 
of  the  slavocracy,  yet  he  perceived,  with  solicitude,  that  the 
counter-current  grew  steadily  stronger.  It  was  precisely  on 
this  account  that  he  asserted  the  contrary  so  emphatically. 


'  "  The  last,  perhaps  the  greatest,  of  the  prominent  sources  of  discord  and 
disaster  supposed  to  lurk  in  our  political  condition,  was  the  institution  of 
domestic  slavery.  Our  forefathers  were  deeply  impressed  with  the  delicacy 
of  this  subject,  and  they  treated  it  with  a  forbearance  so  evidently  wise, 
that,  in  spite  of  every  sinister  foreboding,  it  never,  until  the  present  period, 
disturbed  the  tranquillity  of  our  common  country.  Such  a  result  is  suflB- 
cient  evidence  of  the  justice  and  of  the  patriotism  of  their  course;  it  is  evi- 
dence not  to  be  mistaken,  that  an  adherence  to  it  can  prevent  all  embar- 
rassment from  this,  as  well  as  every  other  anticipated  cause  of  difficulty  or 
danger.  ...  If  the  agitation  of  this  subject  was  intended  to  reach  the 
stabihty  of  onr  institutions,  enough  has  occurred  to  show  that  it  has  sig- 
nally failed,  and  that  in  this,  as  in  every  other  instance,  the  apprehensions 
of  the  timid  and  the  hopes  of  the  wicked  for  the  destruction  of  our  govern- 
ment, are  again  to  be  disappointed,  ...  It  will  be  ever  thus.  Such 
attempts  at  dangerous  agitation  may  periodically  return,  but,  with  each, 
the  object  will  be  better  understood."   State8m.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1157, 115& 


ELIJAH    P.    LOVEJOT.  221 

Tf  lie  could  cause  it  to  be  believed  that  he  was  guiding  the 
country  under  the  favorable  wind  of  an  almost  unanimous 
public  opinion,  public  opinion  which  had  been  shaken  might 
])erliaps  have  been  confirmed  again;  not  only  the  actual  but 
also  the  imagined  cry  of  whole  masses  is  contagious,  and  in 
numberless  ears  it  sounds  a  great  deal  louder  than  it  is  in 
reality.  But  by  his  exaggeration,  "Van  Buren  himself  un- 
veiled his  untruth.  If  every  new  contest  had  led  to.  a  better 
understanding  of  the  question,  and  thereby  to  a  diminution 
of  danger,  how  was  it  to  be  explained  that  the  peace  of  the 
country  was  now  disturbed  for  the  first  time?  If  only  this 
much  was  true,  that  the  excitement  of  minds  was  now  deeper 
and  more  general  than  in  former  times,  the  appeal  to  the 
tested  sufficiency  of  the  compromise  was  vain.  And  the 
arrow  recoiled  on  the  archer  with  all  the  greater  force,  since 
there  was  no  controversy  at  the  time  which  directly  involved 
the  relative  power  of  the  two  sections,  as,  for  instance,  the 
admission  of  a  state. 

The  excitement  of  minds  had  indeed  become  deeper  and 
more  general,  although,  as  had  already  been  said,  the  wild 
absence  of  restraint  in  the  onset  of  the  south  and  of  the 
northern  populace  against  the  desperate  agitators  had  begun 
to  subside.  The  list  of  horrible  excesses  was  indeed  by  no 
means  closed.  The  first  martyr  blood  flowed  on  the  7th  of 
November,  1837,  and  this  in  a  free  state.  Elijah  P.  Love- 
joy  paid  his  life  for  not  ceasing  the  propagandism  of  his 
convictions  spite  of  the  destruction  of  his  press.^  On  the 
17th  of  May  of  the  following  year,  Pennsylvania  Hall,  in 
Philadelphia,  which  the  abolitionists  had  built  for  themselves 
because  they  could  not  but  see  that  no  appropriate  locality 
would  be  allowed  them,  was  burned  down.'    Not  satisfied 

'  Edw.  Beecher,  Narrative  of  Riots  at  Alton;  Alton,  1838.    The  official 
report  of  the  mayor  is  printed  in  Niles,  LIII,  pp.  196,  197. 
•Niles,  LIV,  p.  195. 


222  Jackson's  admikistration — annexation  of  texas. 

even  with  this,  the  anti-abolitionist  mob  set  fire  to  an  orphan 
asylum  for  colored  children,  with  which  the  abolitionists 
had  no  connection  whatever,*  The  authorities  no  where 
opposed  this  and  similar  disgraceful  acts  with  energy,  but 
there  were,  indeed,  priests  of  love  and  servants  of  justice 
who  spoke  i n  favor  of  these  acts.  Lovejoy 's  murderers  escaped 
unpunished.  In  Philadelphia,  the  mayor  induced  the  aboli- 
tionists to  surrender  to  him  the  keys  of  the  hall  in  considera- 
tion of  the  assurance  of  his  protection,  assured  the  threatening 
masses  that  he  expected  to  see  them  themselves  perform  the 
duties  of  the  police,  because  "  we  never  call  out  the  military 
here; "  and  then  went  his  way.  And  the  attorney  general  of 
Massachusetts  had  the  effrontery  in  Faneuil  Hall  to  compare 
the  heroes  of  Alton  to  the  great  patriots  of  the  Revolution. 
But  easily  as  it  might  still  become  dangerous  in  the  highest 
degree  to  life  or  property  to  be  an  abolitionist,  the  battle  with 
the  "  fanatics  "  rapidly  assumed,  on  the  whole,  the  form  in 
which  other  political  controversies  are  fought  out.  The  aboli- 
tionists had  become  too  numerous  to  be  frightened  back  into 
nothingness  by  the  excesses  of  the  mob;  but  their  numbers 
had  increased  so  slowly  that  it  was  placed  beyond  question 
that  they  could  not  form  an  independent  political  party  in 
the  future,  by  that  fact  alone.  The  crystallization  of  political 
ideas  is  accomplished  too  rapidly  in  democratic  republics  to 
permit  an  idea  which,  spite  of  the  most  universal  interest 
and  of  the  most  lively  agitation,  has  won  over  only  an  eva- 
nescent fraction  of  the  people,  to  form  the  nucleus  for  the 
building  up  of  a  great  political  party.  In  the  present  in- 
stance there  was  no  need  of  indirect  conclusions  from  the 
teachings  of  experience — the  internal  development  of  aboli- 
tionism was  direct  proof. 

The  programme  with  which  the  abolitionists  appeared  be- 
fore the  people  at  the  time  of  the  establishment  of   the 

•  Wilson,  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power,  I,  p.  297. 


gakrison's  intellectual  build.  223 

American  Anti-Slaverj  Society  in  December,  1833,  expressly 
announced  that  their  action  should  be  moral  and  political.' 
In  January,  1837.  in  the  fifth  annual  meeting  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Anti-Slavery  Society,  Robert  B.  Hall  spoke  against 
all  active  participation  in  politics,  but  did  not  tind  a  single 
person  who  agreed  with  him  in  his  opinion.  Garrison  ex- 
pressed himself  highly  surprised  to  hear  such  an  opinion 
from  a  subscriber  of  that  programme.^  But  the  process  of 
fermentation  which  had  once  taken  hold  of  Garrison's  whole 
mind  and  soul  at  Baltimore,  had  not  yet  come  to  a  close. 
Was  not  the  incipient  nnderstanding  of  the  real  nature  of 
slavery  and  of  the  duty  of  men  as  citizens  and  Christians  in 
relation  to  it,  perhaps  only  the  first  rent  in  a  mist  which 
extended  far  beyond  the  limits  of  this  question?  If  the  con- 
sciousness and  judgment  of  the  world  were  in  this  matter 
involved  in  so  great  darkness,  and  if  he  so  thoughtlessly  per- 
mitted himself  to  be  urged  onward  in  the  turbid  stream  of 
this  universal  opinion,  was  it  so  improbable  that,  so  far  as 
the  world  and  himself  were  concerned,  the  same  might  be 
the  case  in  reference  to  other  problems  of  life  in  which  the 
truth  was  not  so  apparent?  The  question  was  raised  with 
all  the  energy  of  his  fiery  temperament,  and  examined  with 
the  intense  moral  earnestness  of  his  will;  but  with  a  mind 
capable  of  logical  thinking  neither  by  natural  endowment 
nor  from  education,  his  judgment  in  the  hand  of  his  un- 
bridled feeling  was  lost  in  a  labyrinth  of  senseless  abstrac- 
tions. With  his  departure  from  the  orthodox  faith,  his 
religious  convictions  were  dissolved  into  a  philosophy  of  feel- 
ing with  a  touch  of  theism,  and  the  war  to  the  knife  against 

'  "  "We  also  maintain  that  there  are,  at  the  present  time,  the  highest 
obligations  resting  upon  the  people  of  the  free  states  to  remove  slavery  by 
moral  and  political  action,  as  prescribed  in  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States." 

•  Wilson,  I,  pp.  359,  360. 


224  Jackson's  administbation — annexation  of  texas. 

the  "  crime  "  of  slavery  sanctioned  by  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  carried  him  so  far  as  to  cause  him  to  desire  to 
wring  the  sword  from  the  hands  of  all  governments.^  Clam- 
bering up  on  the  ladder  of  his  wonderful  logic  towards  pure 
"  principles,"  without  looking  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  he 
soon  completely  lost  the  ground  of  the  real  world  under  his 
feet.  It  was  obvious  then  that  active  participation  in  politics 
should  appear  an  error;  and  the  error  rapidly  turned  into 
moral  aberration.  The  person  who  wished  to  operate  with 
political  means,  had  to  take  his  point  of  departure  from  the 
existing  condition  of  the  law,  and  thus  he  became  a  participant 
in  the  guilt  of  the  national  crime.  Even  if  personal  interests 
and  all  the  impurity  that  otherwise  adheres  to  political  life 
could  be  kept  at  a  distance,  yet,  on  this  account,  all  political 
action  should  be  rejected  on  principle,  because  it  supposes  a 
contradiction  with  the  moral  principle  which  is  to  be  as- 
serted. The  objection  that  practical  political  results  should  be 
aimed  at,  and  that  such  could  be  obtained  only  through 
political  action,  he  repelled  with  the  declaration,  that  the  ful- 
fillment of  duty  should  not  be  qualified  by  the  question  of 
its  consequences:  his  understanding  of  the  how  was  com- 
pletely lost  in  the  what. 

Abolitionism  was  no  longer  identified  with  the  person  of 
Garrison,  and  only  the  smaller  portion  of  the  sect  adopted 
the  conclusions  which  its  founder  drew  from  his  premises. 
But  even  if  some  were  at  a  standstill,  while  the  others 
advanced,  even  the  former  were  radicals;  there  was  only  a 
difierence  of  degree  between  them.  Intolerance,  and  the  in- 
clination to  swell  every  difference  of  opinion  into  the  dimen- 
sions of  a  question  of  principle,  was  therefore  common  to 
them  all;  for  both  faults  are  in  the  nature  of  radicalism. 

'  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  the  authors  of  this  political  philosophy  who 
wished  to  abolish  war,  the  army,  the  death  penalty,  physical  compulsion  of 
all  kind  as  a  punishment,  called  themselves  "  non-resistants." 


THE   ABOLITIONISTS   DIVIDED.  225 

Tlie  more  moderate,  even,  got  the  start  of  the  ultras  here. 
Even  before  the  contest  on  this  chief  question  had  begun, 
discord  was  sown  among  the  abolitionists  bv  these  ultras,  be- 
cause they  could  not  make  their  views  on  the  woman  ques- 
tion prevail.  No  one  had  anything  to  object  to  the  fact  that 
women  had  met  and  formed  anti-slavery  societies  of  their 
own ;  but  that  they  should  now  be  allowed  full  and  equal 
rights  in  the  other  anti-slavery  societies  was  sufficient  provo- 
cation to  produce  the  division  and  scattering  of  the  forces 
already  small  enough. 

The  division  of  the  abolitionists  into  two  parties,  in  deadly 
enmity  each  ^vith  the  other,  took  place  only  in  the  second 
and  third  years  of  Van  Buren's  presidency;  but  the  differ- 
ences on  the  woman  question  and  some  other  heresies  of  Gar- 
rison, much  farther  removed  from  slavery,  dated  as  far  back 
as  Jackson's  administration.  These  differences  and  heresies 
were,  so  to  speak,  traded  in  open  market  from  the  very  be- 
ginning, and  Van  Bnren  was  a  politician  too  deeply  dyed  in 
the  wool  not  to  recojrnize  that  these  internal  contentions  de- 
stroyed  all  possibility  of  the  political  success  of  the  aboli- 
tionists, if  such  a  possibility  had  ever  existed.  It  was  cer- 
tainly his  honest  conviction,  that  the  "  hopes  of  the  wicked  " 
were  already  wrecked;  and,  taken  in  this  sense,  the  asser- 
tion was  certainly  correct.  It  was  even  apparent  how  dis- 
advantageously  the  drawing  of  foreign  questions  into  their 
programme  operated  on  the  progress  of  their  propagandism. 
In  part,  these  general  radical  tendencies  really  inspired  dis- 
trust of  their  doctrines  on  slavery,  even  where  there  was 
an  honest  inclination  towards  these  doctrines;  but  they  were 
used  chiefly  as  a  convenient  pretext  to  put  an  end,  in  moral 
indignation,  to  all  agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  The 
abolitionists  generally  were  held  responsible  for  every  word 
uttered  by  Garrison,  who,  after  all,  was  only  the  leader  of 
the  small  extreme  wing;  and  whoever  opposed  the  slavocracy 
15 


226  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

was  branded  as  an  abolitionist.  It  was  only  natural  that 
tlie  clergymen  of  all  the  sects  were  the  first  to  seize  on  this 
pretext,  and  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

The  principle  of  authority  is  one  of  the  chief  pillars  of  all 
positive  religions,  and,  to  a  still  greater  extent,  of  most 
churches.  Leaving  out  of  consideration  those  sects  which,  in 
accordance  with  the  mode  of  speech  usual  in  Europe,  cannot 
be  considered  churches  at  all,  because  they  have,  in  that  which 
is  essential,  renounced  the  dogmas  of  positive  Christianity, 
abolitionism  stood,  therefore,  in  a  certain  natural  opposition 
to  all  churches,  because  it  meant,  in  its  very  essence,  revolu- 
tion. But,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  idea  of  religion  is 
given  the  principle:  Thou  shalt  obey  God  rather  than  men. 
"With  those  who  endeavored  to  live  in  direct  accordance 
with  this  principle,  the  question  necessarily  took  the  follow- 
ing form:  whether  the  teachings  of  the  abolitionists  were  in 
conformity  with  the  commands  of  God;  and  to  what  extent 
they  were  so  conformable.  The  man  who,  in  every  word  of 
the  Bible,  saw  a  command  of  God,  to  be  literally  accepted,  and 
of  obligation  to  the  end  of  time,  could  easily  find  the  seal  of 
divine  approbation  for  any  answer  for  which  he  wished  to 
find  it;  the  man  who  examined  the  Bible,  not  for  the  con- 
firmation of  an  answer  already  virtually  given,  but  who,  in 
simplicity  of  heart,  endeavored  to  understand  the  teaching 
of  Christ  in  "  spirit  and  in  truth,"  must  have  been  power- 
fully attracted  to  adopt  the  abolitionist  confession  of  faith. 
Hence,  from  the  very  beginning,  we  find  the  clergy  very 
largely  represented  even  among  the  leading  abolitionists. 
But,  on  the  othei  hand,  it  was  clergymen  who  first  and  with 
greatest  decision  opposed  the  radical  tendencies  of  the  abo- 
litionists. A  pastoral  letter  of  the  Congregational  preachers 
of  Massachusetts  turned  the  woman  question  into  an  apple 
of  discord ;  and  under  the  leadership  of  clergymen,  the  seces- 
sion of  those  who,  according  ta  the  words  of  the  apostle, 


AMERICAN   CHUKCHES.  227 

wished  to  keep  women  silent  in  the  church,  took  place  in 
New  York. 

If  the  naturally  conservative  disposition  of  the  clergy 
asserted  itself  even  in  the  case  of  declared  abolitionists, 
when  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  abolitionism  began  to  grow 
active  outside  of  the  slavery  question,  it  cannot  be  a  matter 
of  surprise  that,  with  a  great  majority  of  the  clergy  of 
nearly  all  sects,  it  was  in  vain  that  that  same  revolutionary 
spirit  endeavored  to  shake  the  principle  of  authority  in 
respect  to  the  slavery  question  also.  The  Emancijpator^ 
the  organ  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  thought, 
after  the  outbreak  of  the  controversy  on  the  woman  ques- 
tion, that,  a  few  months  before,  it  looked  as  though  the 
most  of  the  clergy  intended  to  go  over  to  the  camp  of 
the  decided  opponents  of  slavery.^  The  hope  was  entirely 
vain.  Even  if  the  questions  above  referred  to,  and  which 
were  foreign  to  the  programme  of  abolitionism,  had  never 
been  made  the  subject  of  debate,  this  could  certainly  not 
have  occurred  as  yet.  The  peculiar  character  of  the  Ameri- 
can churches  made  this  simply  impossible  from  the  first. 
They  do  not,  like  the  churches  in  Europe,  stand  outside  and 
above  the  people,  as  independent  and  peculiar  organizations, 
the  forms  and  laws  of  whose  life  were,  in  that  which  is  es- 
sential, fixed  centuries  ago.  The  churches  in  the  United 
States  are  not  only  saturated  with  the  democratic  spirit 
which  fills  the  life  of  the  people  in  all  other  respects,  but 
they  are  a  living  emanation  from  that  same  spirit.  This  is 
true  to  a  great  extent,  even  of  those  among  them  whose 
external  organization  has,  in  the  main,  preserved  the  auto- 
nomic character  inherited  from  Europe.''    Hence  their  guid- 

'  Wilson,  I,  p.  411. 

'  This  is  obviously  not  applicable  to  the  Roman  Catholic  church.  It  is 
in  the  United  States  what  it  is  everywhere  else  in  the  world;  only,  there, 
it  has  to  go  its  way,  on  the  whole,  unsupported,  but,  at  the  same  time, 


228   JACKSOn's  ADMINTSTB^TTON AITNEXATION  of  TEXAS. 

ance  in  intellectual  and  spiritual  matters  bears  an  essentially 
different  character  from  that  which  the  clergy  in  the  Euro- 
pean churches  are  able  to  exercise  over  believers,  and,  in  fact, 
do  exercise  in  part.  It  covers  much  larger  ground,  because 
the  church  and  the  clergyman's  home  are,  to  an  extent 
scarcely  intelligible  to  the  European,  the  center,  not  only  of 
the  religious,  but  also  of  the  intellectual,  social,  congrega- 
tional or  parish  life;  and  it  is  much  stronger,  because  to  be- 
long to  a  religious  community  is  a  conscious  act  of  the  will, 
to  a  degree  incomparably  greater  than  in  Europe,  and  be- 
csause  not  only  the  law,  but  custom,  leaves  it  entirely  to  the 
freedom  of  the  individual  to  decide  to  which  church  he  will 
attach  himself.  But  the  American  clergyman  can  never 
address  his  congregation  in  a  tone  of  authority,  for  the  reason 
that  he  is  not  only  in  name,  but  also  in  truth,  a  preacher,  and 
•not  a  priest.  And  even  if  he  could,  he  would  still  feel  much 
less  inclined  to  do  it  than  his  European  colleagues.  The  self- 
activity  of  the  congregations,  exercised  for  generations,  has 
developed  in  them  an  independence  and  a  self-consciousness 
which  render  it  impossible  that  they  should  be  thus  ad- 
dressed; and  in  this  spirit,  which  permeates  the  whole  people, 

unmolested  by  the  temporal  power.  Of  its  attitude  towards  the  slavery 
question,  Th.  Parker  says:  "Even  the  Catholic  church  in  the  United 
States  forms  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  The  late  lamented  Dr. 
England,  the  Catholic  bishop  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  undertook  in 
pubUc  to  prove  that  the  Catholic  church  had  alwaj^  been  the  uncompro- 
mising friend  of  slaveholding,  not  defending  the  slave's  right,  but  the 
usurped  privilege  of  the  masters."  And  in  another  place:  '  I  am  told 
there  is  not  in  all  America  a  single  Catholic  newspaper  hostile  to  slavery; 
not  one  opposed  to  tyranny  in  general;  not  one  that  takes  sides  with  the 
oppressed  in  Europe."  Th.  Parker's  Works,  edit.  Trtibner,  V,  p.  57,  and 
VI,  p.  128.  The  person  who  needs  an  explanation  of  this  will  find  it  in 
the  following  confession  by  Brownsoa:  "For  us  Catholics,  the  fugitive 
slave  law  presents  no  sort  of  difficulty.  We  are  taught,  as  we  have  said, 
to  respect  and  obey  the  government  as  the  ordinance  of  God,  in  all  things 
not  declared  by  our  church  to  be  repugnant  to  the  divine  law."  Brows' 
•on's  Review,  Januaiy,  1831,  p.  94. 


SLAVERY   AND  THE   CLEKGY.  229 

the  clergy,  as  well  as  all  others,  have  grown  up.  They  are 
Americans  before  they  become  clergymen ;  and  when  they 
have  become  clergymen,  they  find  in  the- circumstances  actu- 
ally existing  a  lofty  and  powerful  rampart  against  the  arch- 
terapter,  opportunity.  Life  within  the  several  churches  is 
in  a  more  constant  flow  than  in  Europe,  and  if  the  clergy  in 
general,  more  than  any  others,  contribute  to  the  production 
of  the  stream,  their  action  is  characterized  more  by  this,  that 
they  move  forward  in  the  current  at  the  head  of  all  others, 
rather  than  that  they  produce  the  current.  And  this  is  all 
the  more  the  case,  since,  as  before  remarked,  life  inside  of 
the  several  churches,  and  especially  inside  the  several  con- 
gregations, is  by  no  means  limited  to  what  constitutes  in 
Europe  the  sphere  of  action  of  church  parishes,  but  embraces 
more  or  less  all  ideal  interests.  The  influence  of  the  Amer- 
ican clergy  extends  farther,  and  is  frequently  greater;  but 
they  are  not  so  well  adapted  to  taking  the  initiative;  they 
are  less  adroit,  and  especially  less  vigorous,  than  their  Euro- 
pean companions  in  office  in  taking  it. 

That  this  general  characterization  must  be  qualified,  in 
many  ways,  when  we  enter  into  particulars,  is  self-evident. 
The  fact  on  which  we  have  already  laid  stress,  that  a  great 
part  of  the  leading  abolitionists  belonged  to  the  clerical  order, 
is  evidence  that  exceptions  are  not  wanting.  But  here,  too, 
the  old  saying,  that  the  exception  proves  the  rule,  is  true. 
We  have  seen  with  what  determination  and  what  indignation 
the  immense  majority  of  the  people  pronounced  sentence  of 
death  on  the  abolitionists,  and  we  may  now  measure  the  full 
folly  of  the  hope  that  the  mass  of  the  clergy  would,  notwith- 
standing, join  them.  The  assertion  already  made,  that  many 
grasped  at  the  first  pretext  to  turn  the  "  fanatics "  out  of 
doors',  will  not  be  contested.  The  spirit  of  Christianity 
cried  out  too  loudly  against  slavery  not  to  allow  the  warning 
and  threatening  appeals  of  the  abolitionists  to  find  an  echo 


230  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

in  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  hearts  of  a  considerable  number 
of  the  special  servants  of  Christ,  and  yet  the  clergy  have 
too  much  of  the  human  in  them  to  keep  the  flesh  from  some- 
times lording  it  over  the  spirit.  But  the  great  majority 
went  as  the  masses  of  the  people  went,  not  because  the 
masses  went  in  a  certain  way,  but  with  the  masses;  that  is, 
not  against  their  own  convictions,  and  not  to  do  as  the 
masses  did.  They  acted  as  the  masses  acted,  because  they, 
in  all  things,  belonged  to  the  masses,  belonged  to  them  in 
their  whole  thought  and  feeling.  And  their  subsequent 
wheeling  about  with  public  opinion  is  to  be  understood  in 
the  same  way;  entering  the  lists  in  the  south  more  and  more 
unconditionally,  and  more  and  more  passionately  for  slavery, 
and  in  the  north  opposing  it  more  and  more  decidedly.  And 
as  now  in  the  north,  the  joining  of  the  clergy  in  the  cry 
against  the  abolitionists,  and,  further,  against  all  agitation 
of  the  slavery  question,  contributed  greatly  to  make  that  cry 
more  general,  more  violent  and  more  forcible;  so,  subse- 
quently, their  kicking  against  the  goad  did  much  to  excite 
and  extend  the  desire  to  break  the  chains  of  the  slavocracy. 
Tlie  charge  of  the  abolitionists  that  the  churches  were  the 
"strongest  bulwark  of  slavery,"^  was  entirely  justified;  but, 
after  the  abolitionists  and  the  slave-barons,  they  did  most 
for  the  internal  emancipation  of  the  northern  population.' 
Partisanship  has,  thus  far,  always  exposed  only  one  side  or  the 
other  to  view,  and  thus  transformed  a  phenomenon  which 
has  its  root  in  the  innermost  nature  of    the  people,  and 

■  An  essay  of  J.  G.  Bimey,  afterwards  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
which  was  read  very  widely,  bore  the  title,  "  The  American  Churches  the 
Bulwarks  of  American  Slavery."  The  moderate  Alb.  Barnes  writes :  "It 
is  probable  that  slavery  could  not  be  sustained  in  this  land  if  it  were  not 
for  the  countenance,  direct  and  indirect,  of  the  churches. ' '  The  Church  and 
Slavery,  p.  28. 

'  This  is  true,  of  course,  only  of  native  Americans  and  not  of  emigrants, 
especially  the  Germans. 


8LAVEKT   AND   THE   OHUKCH.  231 

which  is  therefore  highly  instructive  for  the  understanding 
of  that  very  nature,  into  an  enigma  which  obscures  the  entire 
subsequent  development. 

When  the  Emancipatar^  in  the  article  mentioned,  alleged 
that  a  great  many  of  the  clergy  fought  for  slavery  and 
against  liberty,  with  full  consciousness  and  reprobate  deter- 
mination, it  was  guilty  of  a  wicked  exaggeration.^  The  pro- 
slavery  fanaticism  was  yet  in  so  early  a  period  of  its  infancy, 
that  there  were  still,  even  in  the  southern  churches,  only  very 
weak  and  entirely  isolated  traces  of  so  extensive  a  corruption 
of  judgment  and  sentiment  to  be  found.  The  churches 
still,  without  exception,  acknowledged  slavery  to  be  a  great 
evil,  and  there  is  no  ground  for  the  assumption  that  they  did 
not  honestly  entertain  this  opinion.  But,  with  the  making  of 
this  acknowledgment,  they  believed  that  they  had  done  their 
share.  They  declined  all  responsibility,  not  only  for  the  ex- 
istence of  the  evil,  but  also  for  its  continuance,  and  would 
not  hear  that  there  was  any  obligation  on  them  to  proceed 
against  the  slaveholders  with  the  means  which  ecclesiastical 
discipline  had  put  in  their  hands;  or  else  they  went  so  far 
as  to  deny  that  they  had  any  right  to  so  proceed  against  it. 
"We  wash  our  hands  in  innocence,"  such  is  the  fundamental 
idea  of  their  numberless  declarations  during  this  period.' 

'  "  They  are  settling  down  into  a  fixed  hatred  of  the  principles  of  liberty, 
and  a  fixed  determination,  at  any  hazard,  to  maintain  the  lawfulness  of 
slavery,  and  the  criminality  of  efforts  for  its  removal.  They  are  evincing 
a  readiness  to  abandon  any  principle,  to  impugn  any  doctrine,  to  violate 
any  obligation,  to  outrage  any  feeling,  to  sacrifice  any  interest,  heretofore 
held  dear  or  sacred,  if  it  be  found  to  afford  countenance  or  strength  to  anti- 
slavery." 

*  Only  one  proof  to  show  how  great  a  change  for  the  worse  this  involved. 
During  the  last  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  preachers  and  yearly 
conferences  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  received  the  following  in- 
structions in  relation  to  slavery:  "  The  preachers  and  other  members  of 
our  society  are  requested  to  consider  the  subject  of  negro  slavery  with  deep 
attention,  and  that  they  impart  to  the  general  conference,  through  the 


232   JACKSON'S  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

But,  considering  the  impetuous  advance  of  the  abolition- 
ists, things  could  not  stop  here.  The  lamentations  of  resig- 
nation were  changed  into  excuses,  and  the  excuses,  bj  degrees, 
came  to  bear  a  desperate  resemblance  to  justifications.  Man 
always  very  soon  makes  friends  with  a  sin  in  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  which  the  will  is  consciously  left  completely 
passive  or  is  kept  passive  from  principle.  Here  the  disciplin- 
ary penalties  formerly  in  use  were  tacitly  suspended  or  ex- 
pressly repudiated;  there  the  "  sin  "  was  diluted  to  an  "  evil; " 
and  here,  again,  people  would  not  permit  the  adjective 
"moral"  to  be  placed  before  the  ^evil;"  one  church  wiped 
out  an  emphatic  declaration  transmitted  from  an  earlier  time, 
and  contended  that  it  never  had  had  the  force  of  law;  another 
referred  the  question  to  the  lower  grades  of  its  hierarchy,  and 
interposed  when  these  proceeded  aggressively  against  slavery; 
here  one  synod  denied  that  the  holding  of  slaves  was,  "  in 
itself,"  a  sin,  and  carefully  enumerated  all  the  circumstances 
in  which  the  slaveholder  was  entirely  guiltless;  there,  a  con- 
ference admonished  the  people  to  pay  less  attention  to  the 
guilt  of  the  slaveholders,  and  rather,  in  Christian,  brotherly 

medium  of  the  yearly  conferences,  or  otherwise,  any  important  thoughts  on 
the  subjects,  that  the  conference  may  have  full  light,  in  order  to  take  fur- 
ther steps  towards  eradicating  this  enormous  evil  from  that  part  of  the 
Church  of  God  with  which  they  are  connected.  The  annual  conferences 
are  directed  to  draw  up  addresses  for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  the 
slaves,  to  the  legislatures  of  those  states  in  which  no  general  laws  have 
been  passed  for  that  purpose.  These  addresses  shall  urge,  in  the  most  re- 
spectful but  pointed  manner,  the  necessity  of  a  law  for  the  gradual  eman- 
cipation of  slaves.  Proper  committees  shall  be  appointed  by  the  annual 
conferences  out  of  the  most  respectable  of  our  friends,  for  conducting  the 
business;  and  presiding  elders,  elders,  deacons  and  traveling  preachers 
shall  secure  as  many  proper  signatures  as  possible  to  the  addresses,  and 
give  all  the  assistance  in  their  power,  in  every  respect,  to  aid  the  commit- 
tees and  to  forward  the  blessed  imdertaking.  Let  this  be  continued  from 
year  to  year  tiQ  the  desired  end  be  accomplished." 
In  the  year  18>i6  the  general  conference  of  the  same  church  declared,  on 


SLAVERY   AND   THE   CHUECHE8.  233 

love,  to  bewail  their  misfortune;  another  conference,  else- 
where, choked  with  its  exclamations  the  first  word  of  a 
brother  who  had  caught  the  contagion  of  abolitionism,  and 
who,  instead  of  the  torrent  of  phrases  which  meant  every- 
thing and  nothing,  put  forward  concrete  questions  and  de- 
manded a  plain  yes  or  no;  all  confined  themselves  more  and 
more  to  denouncing  slavery  in  abstractor  and  took  greater  and 
greater  pains  to  wrap  slavery  in  the  United  States  around 
with  a  lying  mist,  and  to  screen  it  from  observation;  all 
were  influenced  by  the  dread  of  seeing  their  church  divided 
into  two  parties  by  slavery ;  and  many  were  found  who  be- 
gan to  produce  proof  that  slavery  was  approved  of,  or  at 
least  not  condemned,  by  the  Bible.^ 

To  be  an  abolitionist  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  member  of 
a  church,  became  more  and  more  difficult  every  day,  and,  in 
some  cases,  even  impossible.  But  that  the  united  opposition 
of  nearly  all  the  churches  was  alone  more  than  sufficient  to 
checkmate  abolitionism  to  such  an  extent  that  the  slightest 
danger  to  the  peculiar  institution  could  not  grow  out  of  it, 
no  American  could  for  a  moment  doubt.     Not  the  slavery 

the  contrary,  by  a  vote  of  120  against  14,  that  it  did  "  wholly  disclaini  any 
right,  wish  (!),  or  intention  to  interfere  with  the  civil  and  political  relation 
of  master  and  slave,  as  it  exists  in  the  slaveholding  states  of  this  union." 
The  reason  for  this  declaration  is  given  in  the  pastoral  address.  "The 
question  of  slavery  ia  the  United  States,  by  the  constitutional  compact 
which  binds  us  together  as  a  nation,  is  left  to  be  regulated  by  the  several 
state  legislatures  themselves;  and  thereby  is  put  beyond  the  control  of  the 
general  government,  as  well  as  of  aU  ecclesiastical  bodies;  it  being  mani- 
fest that  in  the  slaveholding  states  themselves  the  entire  (!)  responsibihty 
of  its  existence  or  non-exiBtence  rests  with  those  state  legislatures." 
GoodeU,  pp.  107,  145, 146. 

'  I  would  refer  any  one  interested  in  the  details  of  this  development  to  the 
works  already  cited  and  Sunderland's  Anti-Slavery  Manual;  to  Matlack'a 
History  of  American  Slavery  and  Methodism;  Facts  for  Baptist  Churches; 
Pillsbury's  The  Church  as  it  is,  or  The  Forlorn  Hope  of  Slavery;  Stanton's 
The  Church  and  the  RebeUion  against  the  Government  of  the  United 
States. 


234  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

of  the  blacks,  but  its  own  servitude,  whicb  necessarily  re- 
sulted therefrom,  drove  the  unwilling  north  to  a  more  deter- 
mined and  more  general  opposition  to  the  slavocracy.  The 
abolitionists  had  so  far  waked  up  the  conscience  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  free  states  that  it  could  not  again  be  sunk  entirely 
in  sleep  by  menaces  or  sophistry;  but  it  was  the  violence  of 
the  slavocracy,  frightened  into  a  suicidal  propagandism, 
which  first  goaded  them  into  real  resistance.  The  protest  of 
revolted  consciences  gave  birth  to  the  horrible  presentiment, 
that,  perhaps,  a  frightful  struggle  would  become  unavoid- 
able; but  that  struggle  was  begun  and  carried  on  by  the 
slavocracy  to  save  their  own  skin.  From  the  ethical  side  of 
the  question,  came  the  impulse  which  urged  it  into  a  new 
phase  of  development,  but  the  struggle  was  concerned  with 
a  political  question  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  slavery. 
Slavery  carried,  in  itself,  the  antidote  against  its  poison.  It 
forced  the  north  to  recognize  that  its  highest  interests  called 
upon  it  to  that,  its  duty  and  right  of  doing  which,  it  was 
arguing  away  with  increasing  skill  and  zeal.  A  corre(-t  val- 
uation of  its  interests  finally  outweighed  the  ignoring  of  the 
ethical  element,  and  the  better  understanding  of  the  latter, 
promoted  by  this  means,  began,  in  turn,  to  afford  an  incent- 
ive to  a  more  vigorous  advocacy  of  the  former. 

The  churches  in  the  north  went  through  this  process  of 
development  with  the  entire  population,  a  process  which 
lasted  precisely  one  generation.  What  the  clergy  and  the 
laity  versed  in  the  Scriptures  had  laboriously  collected  from 
the  historical  original  documents  of  their  religion,  and  stitched 
into  a  whole  according  to  their  wishes,  they  again,  as  self-con- 
scious citizens  of  the  republic,  ripped  up.  The  disgrace  which 
they  had  to  suffer  as  men  and  as  members  of  the  free  com- 
monwealth, tore  away  the  veil  they  had  made  out  of  the  dead 
letter  to  cover  up  the  living  spirit  of  their  religion.  When 
their  flesh,  which  had  smarted  under  the  yoke  of  slavery,  had 


8LAVEET  m   THE   DI8TBIOT.  235 

taught  tliem  to  listen  once  more  to  the  voice  of  human  rea- 
son and  human  feeling,  and  before  they  had  rummaged  the 
Concordance  for  an  authorizing  text,  they  became,  in  this 
question,  as  servants  of  Christ,  servants  also  of  humanity. 
The  morals  of  politics  are  in  bad  repute  with  most  men ;  but 
history  acquaints  us  with  many  cases  in  which  politics,  with 
its  furtherance  of  interests,  has  been  a  healthy  preserving 
medium,  and  the  religion  of  the  churches,  with  its  moral 
commands,  salt  which  has  lost  its  flavor. 

It  is  not  without  importance  for  the  understanding  of  the 
"  irrepressible  conflict,"  that  the  immediate  material  import- 
ance of  the  question  which  again  brought  the  north  and 
south  into  collision,  was  only  slight. 

It  has  already  been  remarked,  that  the  abolitionists  un- 
conditionally acknowledged  the  want  of  power  of  the  Federal 
government  to  do  anything  within  the  states  against  slavery. 
The  situation  in  the  District  of  Columbia  was  very  different. 
There  slavery  existed  only  by  virtue  of  the  federal  law  of  Feb- 
ruary 27,  1801,  which  left  the  laws  of  Maryland  and  Virginia 
in  force  there.  Hence,  here  slavery  could  be  abolished  by 
law  at  any  moment.  Therefore,  not  only  the  abolitionists, 
but  also  many  more  moderate  opponents  of  slavery,  were 
convinced  that  it  should  be  done  without  delay.  The  matter 
was  frequently  agitated  in  congress.  On  the  6  th  of  January, 
1829,  Miner,  of  Pennsylvania,  moved  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  which,  among  other  things,  was  to  "  inquire  into 
the  expediency  of  providing  by  law  for  the  gradual  abolition 
of  slavery  in  the  District."  ^  The  house  rejected  the  cutting 
arguments  advanced  in  favor  of  the  motion  by  a  vote  of 
one  hundi-ed  and  forty-one  against  thirty- seven,  but  adopted 
the  motion  itself  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
against  sixty-six.'    The  charge  that  this  result  was  a  con- 

>Deb.  of  Cougr.,  X,  pp.  299,  300. 

*lbid.,  p.  314.    In  the  arguments  advanced,  it  was  said,  among  oihei 


236   JACKSON'b  ADMINISTEATION annexation  of  TEXAis. 

sequence  of  the  manner  in  which  it  had  pleased  the  speaker 
to  constitute  the  committee,  was  evidently  unfounded.  No 
matter  who  might  have  been  chosen  as  a  member  of  the 
committee,  the  house  could  not  have  been  induced  to  con- 
form its  action,  in  anything,  to  the  wishes  of  the  maker  of 
the  motion.  Even  the  decided  opponents  of  slavery,  with 
only  very  few  exceptions,  would  have  voted  against  it.  On 
the  12th  of  December,  1831,  John  Quincy  Adams  handed  to 
the  house  fifteen  petitions  praying  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District,  and  at  the  same  time  expressed  his  convictions 
that,  for  reasons  of  expediency,  the  prayer  should  be  refused.* 
The  committee  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  to  whom  the 
petitions  were  referred,  reported  in  conformity  with  this  view. 
Tlie  few  indifferent  words  in  which  Adams  mentions  this 
matter  in  his  diary  are  characteristic.^  It  was  not  until  the 
next  session,  when  Heister,  of  Pennsylvania  (Febniary  4, 
1833),  handed  in  a  petition  of  the  same  tenor,  that  the  first 
traces  of  disquietude  on  the  part  of  the  south  over  this  agita- 
tion showed  themselves.^  Mason,  of  Virginia,  said  that  thus  a 
course  had  been  entered  on,  the  end  of  which  would  be  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  the  United  States,*  Craig,  of  Yirginia, 
however,  reprehended  his  colleague  for  saying  this,  because 
"  all  the  northern  states  were  as  much  concerned  in  all  matters 
relating  to  the  District  of  Columbia  as  those  of  the  southern 

things,  that  the  house  of  representatives  of  Pennsylvania  had  declared  it- 
self, ■'  by  an  almost  unanimous  vote,"  in  favor  of  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  District,  and  that  at  the  last  session  of  congress  *'  numerous  peti- 
tions "  of  the  same  tenor,  among  them  one  of  more  than  a  thousand  in- 
habitants of  the  District,  had  been  presented. 

»Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,  p.  640. 

«Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  VIII,  p.  434. 

•Deb.  of  Ck)ngr.,  XII,  p.  161. 

*"  .  .  though  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  disclaimed  any 
wish  that  congress  should  abolish  it  [slavery]  in  the  states,  yet  this  was 
but  the  commencement  of  a  series  of  measures  which  tended  to  that  re- 
gult" 


ABOLITION   PETITIONS.  237 

states."  This  petition  also  was  referred  to  the  committee  for 
tlie  District  of  Columbia,  after  the  motion  to  lay  it  on  the  table 
had  been  rejected  by  a  vote  of  ninety-eight  against  seventy- 
five.  Two  years  later,  this  first  position,  the  attack  on  which 
now  was  happily  repelled,  was  lost;  the  motion  of  Chinn,  of 
Virginia,  to  lay  a  petition  of  eight  hundred  women  of  New 
York,  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District,  on  the  table, 
was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  seventeen  against 
seventy-seven.^  This  was  the  signal  for  the  beginning  of  the 
battle  along  the  whole  line.  When,  two  weeks  later,  a  num- 
ber of  similar  petitions  was  presented  to  the  house,  McKin- 
ley,  of  Alabama,  called  special  attention  to  the  unanimity 
of  view,  that  no  action  should  be  taken  on  the  matter  during 
the  current  session;  but  the  motion  to  have  the  last  memo- 
rial printed,  led  to  an  angry  debate,  in  which  most  of  the 
essential  elements  of  the  question  were  touched  by  both 
sides.  Bouldin,  of  Yirginia,  was  in  favor  of  printing  it, 
that  the  south  might  see  what  was  thought  at  the  north  of 
slavery ;  for  what  was  said  of  slavery,  slaveholders  and  slave- 
markets  in  the  District,  was  equally  applicable  to  the  morals, 
customs  and  legal  rights  of  the  population  of  the  whole  south. 
Millard  Fillmore  said  that  as  a  citizen  of  New  York  and  as 
a  member  of  the  house,  he  was  interested  in  the  question 
how  it  stood  in  the  District  with  the  claim  of  being  able  to 
own  human  beings;  that  it  was  "a  great  national  question." 
McKinley  called  the  memorial  barefaced  and  a  fire-brand. 
Clement  C.  Clay,  his  colleague,  demonstrated  the  rightful- 
ness of  these  characterizations  further  by  the  question,  what 
value  the  assurance  of  the  representatives  of  the  north  that 
they  did  not  desire  to  meddle  with  the  internal  affairs  of 
the  slave  states,  when  they  allowed  publications  which  were 
threatened  by  nearly  all  the  slave  states  with  severe  penal- 
ties to  be  spread  over  the  whole  country  by  congress,  could 

» Februaiy  2,  1836.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  666. 


238  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

have.  Henry  A.  "Wise,  of  Yirgiaia,  closed  his  angry  decla- 
mation with  the  declaration:  Our  northern  brethren  have 
to  bear  the  effects  of  slavery  as  the  consequence  of  onr  po- 
litical system.^  The  only  correct  answer  to  this  would  have 
been:  The  war  against  slavery  must  be  borne  by  our  south- 
ern brethren  as  the  consequence  of  our  political  system. 
These  two  simple  sentences,  equally  incontestable  and  equally 
evident,  contained  the  whole  slavery  question,  and  proved  the 
impossibility  of  its  peaceable  constitutional  settlement. 

There  was  no  one  in  the  Union  yet  who  had  clearly  con- 
ceived this  double  consequence  of  the  existing  actual  and 
legal  circumstances,  and  only  few  understood  one  phase  of 
them  in  its  full  bearing:.  Even  the  radical  wing:  of  the  aboli- 
tionists  had  not  yet  drawn  the  last  conclusion,  and  when  it 
did  draw  it,  it  took  that  saying  of  "Wise  above  mentioned  as 
its  premise.  Not  the  light  but  the  dark  side  of  the  double 
nature  of  the  Union  was  first  recognized,  and  not  the  fanatics 
of  freedom,  but  the  fanatics  of  slavery,  were  the  first  to  recog- 
nize it  perfectly,  and  to  summon  all  the  acuteness  of  their 
thought,  and  all  their  warmth  of  feeling,  to  open  the  eyes  of 
the  whole  people  to  it.  They  here  met  in  their  own  camp, 
at  first,  with  almost  as  much  opposition  as  in  the  camp  of 
their  opponents. 

Here,  again,  Calhoun  towered  above  all  others  by  more 
than  a  whole  head.  His  motion  (January  7,  1836)  not  to 
receive  two  petitions  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict, brought  on  the  debate  which  the  senate  had  luckily 
avoided  a  few  days  before  by  the  resolution  to  lay  a  similar 
petition  on  the  table.'    The  war  of  words  lasted  until  the 

'  "  Sir,  slavery  is  interwoven  with  our  very  political  existence,  is  guar- 
antied by  our  constitution,  and  its  consequences  must  be  borne  by  our 
northern  brethren,  as  resulting  from  our  system  of  government;  and  they 
cannot  attack  the  institutions  of  slavery  without  attacking  the  institutions 
of  the  country,  our  safety  and  welfare."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  679. 

•Ibid.,  p.  709. 


ABOLITION   PETITIONS.  239 

11th  of  March.  Kearlj  one-half  of  all  the  senators  took 
part  in  it,  and  nearly  all  the  speakers  chastised  Calhoun 
with  their  untiring  tongues,  because,  as  Brown,  of  North 
Carolina,  expressed  it,  he  had  opened  this  box  of  Pandora 
and  endangered  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  to  go  on 
a  Quixotic  expedition  in  search  of  abstract  constitutional 
questions.  His  colleagues  from  the  slaveholding  states 
asked  him  what  necessity  there  was  of  raising  the  question 
of  principle,  which  was  a  purely  formal  one,  so  long  as  com- 
plete unanimity  as  to  the  preservation  of  the  material  rights 
and  interests  of  the  south  prevailed.  The  senators  from  the 
northern  states  cautioned  him  not  to  labor  more  successfully 
for  the  abolitionists  than  they  were  able  to  themselves  by  all 
their  emissaries  and  publications,  by  his  attack  on  the  right 
of  petition/  And  from  both  sides  came  the  old  charge 
again  that,  in  order  to  promote  the  purposes  of  his  party,  he 
was  endeavoring  intentionally  to  incense  the  north  and  the 
south  against  each  other. 

There  was  much  truth  in  all  this,  but  Calhoun's  demand 
was  nevertheless  not  only  warranted,  but,  considered  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  south,  it  was  the  only  correct  course,  so 
long  as  what  Calhoun  had  said  when  making  his  motion : 
that  "the  petitions  were  in  themselves  a  foul  slander  on 
nearly  one-half  of  the  states  of  the  Union,"  could  not  be  re- 
futed.'' Whatever  might  be  the  law,  there  was  no  moral 
difference  between  slavery  in  the  District  and  slavery  in  the 
southern  states.  "What  was  said  against  the  former  was 
addressed  also  to  all  the  slave  states.  If,  as  all  the  petitions 
alleged,  the  nature  of  slavery  made  its  existence  in  the  Dis- 
trict a  national  disgrace  and  a  national  sin,  the  same  disgrace 
and  the  same  sin  weighed  down  every  southern  state.  Hence 
the  petitions  branded,  even  when  they  did  not  say  a  word 

>  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  pp.  717,  726. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  706. 


210  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

about  them,  both  the  slave  states  and  the  constitution  —  the 
former  because  thej  not  only  made  no  attempt  to  remove 
the  inherited  evil,  but,  with  jealous  care,  made  it  every  day 
more  and  more  the  formative  principle  of  their  whole  being, 
and  the  latter  because  it  not  only  tacitly  recognized  slavery 
as  a  fact  which  the  states  exclusively  had  power  to  deal 
with,  but  because  it  moreover  served  in  many  essential  re- 
spects as  its  direct  support  or  protection.  Should  the 
national  legislature  now,  in  any  way,  oifer  its  assistance  to 
brand  such  an  institution  of  one-half  of  the  constitutive 
members  of  the  nation,  one  towards  which  the  national  con- 
stitution assumed  such  an  attitude?  It  was  not  the  inquisi- 
torial meeting  which  morally  lacerated  the  "  great  nullifier  " 
on  account  of  this  new  attempt  on  the  peace  and  existence 
of  the  Union,  but  the  fanatical  states-righter  who  gave  the 
only  answer  to  the  question  which  was  in  harmony  with  the 
nature  of  the  national  constitutional  state.  Calhoun  was 
unquestionably  right  when  he  said  that  unless  an  undoubted 
provision  of  the  constitution  compelled  them  to  receive  such 
petitions,  it  was  their  duty  to  reject  them  at  the  very  thresh- 
old.i 

Calhoun  showed  that  there  was  no  such  absolute  compul- 
sion by  an  undoubted  constitutional  provision,'  and  he  proved 
that  it  was  all  over  with  slavery  in  the  Union,  if  the  attacks 

'  "  As  great  as  would  be  the  advantage  to  the  aboUtionists,  if  we  are 
bound  to  receive  —  if  it  would  be  a  violation  of  the  right  of  petition  not  to 
receive,  we  must  acquiesce.  On  the  other  hand,  if  it  shall  be  shown,  not 
only  that  we  are  not  bound  to  receive,  but  that  to  receive  on  the  ground  on 
which  it  has  been  placed,  would  sacrifice  the  constitutional  rights  of  this 
body,  would  yield  to  the  abolitionists  all  they  could  hope  at  this  time,  and 
would  surrender  all  the  outworks  by  which  the  slaveholding  states  can  de- 
fend their  rights  and  property  here,  then  an  unanimous  rejection  of  these 
petitions  ought  of  right  to  follow."    Calh.'s  Works,  II,  p.  466. 

*  We  shall  discuss  the  constitutional  question  below,  when  the  reader 
will  see  in  how  narrow  a  sense  of  the  word  I  consider  the  proof  of  this 
allegation  of  Calhoun  produced. 


THE  SOUTH    Airo   THE   UNION.  241 

on  it  were  not  beaten  back  from  the  first  He  did  not  suspect 
how  sharp  a  weapon  he  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  aboli- 
tionists by  tlie  confession,  that  once  the  shell  was  broken  the 
power  of  resistance  was  gone.*  But  it  was  true,  and  true 
for  the  reasons  ho  gave.  He  cried  out  to  the  senators  from 
the  southern  states  who  had  pledged  him  their  utmost  assist- 
ance in  case  of  an  attack  on  slavery,  in  the  states,  that  the 
time  had  already  .come  to  redeem  their  pledge.  It  was  im- 
possible to  make  the  attack  with  more  efficient  or  with  other 
weapons  than  it  was  daily  and  hourly  made:  religious  fanati- 
cism had  taken  the  field,  and  taken  it  to  enlist  the  moral 
judgment  of  the  world  against  slavery.'  But,  for  the  south, 
there  was  no  choice.  Highly  as  it,  too,  valued  the  Union,  it 
was  nothing  as  compared  with  this  question,  for  this  ques- 
tion involved  the  existence  of  the  south.  The  last  cent  and 
the  last  drop  of  blood  —  such  would  be  the  "imperious 
necessity."  ^ 

'  "Break  through  the  shell — penetrate  the  crust — and  there  is  no  re- 
sistance within.  In  the  present  contest,  the  question  on  receiving  consti- 
tates  our  frontier.  It  is  the  first,  the  exterior  question,  that  covers  and 
protects  all  the  others.  Let  it  be  penetrated  by  receiving  this  petition,  and 
not  a  point  of  resistance  can  be  found  within,  as  far  as  this  government  is 
concerned.  If  we  can  not  maintain  ourselves  there,  we  can  not  on  any 
interior  position."    Calh.'s  Works,  II,  p.  484. 

•  "  But  I  announce  to  them  that  they  are  now  called  on  to  redeem  their 
pledge.  The  attempt  is  now  being  made.  The  work  is  going  on  daily 
and  hourly.  The  war  is  waged,  not  only  in  the  most  dangerous  manner, 
but  in  the  only  manner  that  it  can  be  waged.  Do  they  expect  that  the 
abolitionists  will  resort  to  arms,  and  commence  a  crusade  to  liberate  our 
slaves  by  force?  Is  this  what  they  mean  when  they  speak  of  the  attempt 
to  abolish  slavery?  If  so,  let  me  tell  our  friends  of  the  south  who  differ 
from  us,  that  the  war  which  the  abolitionists  wage  against  us  is  of  a  very 
different  character,  and  far  more  effective.  It  is  a  var  of  rehgious  and 
political  fanaticism,  mingled,  on  the  part  of  the  leaders,  with  ambition 

,and  the  love  of  notoriety  —  and  waged,  not  against  oiu:  lives,  but  our 
character.  The  object  is  to  debase  and  humble  us  in  our  own  estimation, 
and  that  of  the  world  in  general."    Calh.'s  Works,  II,  pp.  483,  484. 

*  "  We  love  and  cherish  the  Union;  we  remember  with  the  kindest  feel- 

16 


242     JACKSOn's  administration annexation  op  TEXAS. 

Calhoun  spoke  to  deaf  ears.  It  was  resolved,  on  the  9th 
of  March,  to  accept  the  petition,  by  a  vote  of  thirty-six  against 
ten ;  and  two  days  later,  after  a  short  and  unimportant  de- 
bate, the  request  which  it  contained  was  refused  by  a  vote 
of  thirty-four  against  six,^  after  the  south  had  been  repeat- 
edly and  emphatically  assured  by  the  house  that  thus  a  pre- 
cedent was  to  be  established  for  the  rejection  of  all  similar 
petitions,  without  any  discussion,  directly  after  their  recep- 
tion. Buchanan  was  the  worthy  father  of  the  great  thought, 
in  this  manner,  with  an  obliging  compliment  to  both  sides. 
to  slip  through  between  the  hammer  and  the  anvil.  It  was 
a  new  trial  of  the  old  art  by  empty  formulas  to  lie  away  the 
contradiction  of  principles  and  the  collision  of  facts.  It  was 
scarcely  to  be  expected  that  the  petitioners  would  recognize 
a  material  difference  between  a  refusal  to  receive  and  a  rejec- 
tion on  principle,  without  any  discussion;  and  the  principle, 
on  the  unconditional  maintenance  of  which  alone,  in  Cal- 
houn's opinion,  the  safety  of  slavery  was  to  be  hoped  for, 
was  surrendered.  The  defect  in  Calhoun's  reasoning  was  not, 
as  was  claimed  on  all  sides,  that  it  widely  overshot  the  mark, 
but  that  it  did  not,  by  any  means,  go  far  enough,  although 

ings  our  common  origin,  with  pride  our  common  achievements,  and  fondly 
anticipate  the  common  greatness  and  glory  that  seem  to  await  us;  but 
origin,  achievements,  and  anticipation  of  common  greatness,  are  to  us  as 
nothing,  compared  to  this  question.  It  is  to  us  a  vital  question.  It  involves 
not  only  our  Uberty,  but,  what  is  greater  (if  to  freemen  any  thing  can  be), 
existence  itself.  The  relation  which  now  exists  between  the  two  races  in 
the  slaveholding  states  has  existed  for  two  centuries.  It  has  grown  with 
our  growth,  and  strengthened  with  our  strength.  It  haa  entered  into  and 
modified  all  our  institutions,  dvil  and  poUtical.  None  other  can  be  substi- 
tuted. "We  will  not,  can  not,  permit  it  to  be  destroyed.  .  .  .  Come 
what  wUl,  should  it  cost  every  drop  of  blood,  and  every  cent  of  property, 
we  must  defend  ourselves:  ...  we  would  act  under  an  imperious 
necessity.  There  would  be  to  us  but  one  alternative  —  to  triumph  or  perish 
as  a  people."  Ibid.,  II,  pp.  488,  489. 
'Deb.  of  Congr.,  II,  pp.  741,  742. 


CALHOUN   AND   THE    UNION.  243 

it  went  precisely  as  far  as  any  reasoning  could  go,  which  was 
based  on  the  supposition  of  the  preservation  of  this  Union. 
Calhoun's  assertion,  that  the  continuance  of  slavery  in  the 
Union  would  be  impossible  as  soon  as  the  unqualified  con- 
demnation of  it  by  the  abolitionists  became  the  moral  con- 
viction of  the  majority  of  the  people,  and  of  the  civilized 
world,  was  unassailable.  But  could  this  be  prevented  by 
making  the  thresholds  of  the  halls  of  congress  magic  lines 
which  the  abolitionist  confession  of  faith  would  not  be  able 
to  pass?  The  last  conclusion  from  his  own  irrefutable 
premises  was  not  to  the  effect  that  the  attack  should  be  met 
at  the  very  border  if  it  were  to  be  beaten  back,  but  that  the 
attack  itself  should  be  rendered  impossible.  Tliis  thought 
may  be  read  as  plainly  as  if  written  in  capitals,  between  the 
lines  of  Calhoun's  speech  of  the  9th  of  March.  He  does  not 
express  it,  because  the  demand  would  have  been  an  evident 
absurdity.  And  more,  he  does  not  admit  it  to  himself,  be- 
cause he  neither  will  nor  can  abandon  the  hope  that  it  was 
possible  to  save  both  the  Union  and  slavery.  Such  were  the 
conclusions  which  this  slave  of  his  own  logic,  who,  it  was 
alleged,  labored  systematically  for  years  for  the  destruction 
of  the  Union,  drew  from  the  desired  exclusion  of  the  aboli- 
tionist agitation  from  congress,  as  if  its  exclusion  from 
congress  was  identical  with  its  destruction.  So  long  as 
resolutions  of  congress  and  laws  could  not  destroy  the  moral 
consciousness  of  the  people,  so  long  did  the  day  keep  ap- 
proaching uninterruptedly  on  which,  under  the  influence  of 
that  consciousness,  either  slavery  would  have  to  collapse  or  the 
Union  to  be  shattered.  And  so  long  as  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  the  people  was  not  really  dead,  it  was  necessarily 
roused  to  vigorous  action  by  every  effort  to  attain  this  end, 
and,  moreover,  every  effort  in  this  direction  was  an  attempt 
against  the  Union. 
That  he  completely  overlooked  this  last  point,  was  the 


244  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

second  radical  defect  in  Calhoun's  reasoning.  If  it  was, 
under  the  circumstances  created  bj  the  constitution,  against 
the  nature  of  the  national  state,  that  the  national  legislature 
should,  in  any  way,  offer  its  assistance  to  put  a  brand  on 
slavery,  it  was,  in  a  still  higher  degree,  under  the  circum- 
stances created  by  the  constitution,  against  the  nature  of  the 
national  state,  that  the  national  legislature  should,  in  any  way, 
oppose  the  fight  against  slavery,  so  long  as  it  was  carried  on 
only  with  the  weapons  of  the  intellect.  Calhoun  rightly  said 
that  congress  should  close  its  doors  to  the  abolitionist  peti- 
tions, unless  an  undoubted  provision  of  the  constitution  com- 
pelled it  to  receive  them;  but  it  was  just  as  unquestionable, 
that  congress  was  in  duty  bound  to  receive  and  to  consider 
them  conscientiously,  unless  it  were  prohibited  to  do  so  by 
an  undoubted  provision  of  the  constitution.  The  constitu- 
tion rested  on  two  opposed  premises,  and  Calhoun's  reason- 
ing proceeded  from  only  one  of  them,  in  a  straight  line. 
The  Protestant  principle  of  the  right  of  self-determination 
had  been  the  great  colonizer  of  New  England,  and  all  the 
English  colonies  reposed  on  the  broad  basis  of  the  English 
common  law,  with  its  spirit  of  moderate  legal  freedom.  From 
these  germs,  under  the  favorino^  influence  of  natural  circum- 
stances,  the  tree  of  American  republican  freedom  had  grown, 
the  most  striking  proof  of  the  strength  of  which  is  furnished 
by  the  fact  that  the  poisonous  branch  of  slavery  which  had 
been  engrafted  on  it  could  not  destroy  it,  deep  as  it  had  car- 
ried disease  even  into  the  roots.  Every  word  of  the  consti- 
tution, with  the  sole  exception  of  the  provisions  relating  to 
slavery,  was  in  harmony  with  this  course  of  historic  devel- 
opment. Tlie  action  of  this  course  of  development,  in  itself, 
was  a  steady  labor  to  expel  the  foreign  poison,  and  the  slave 
states  were  constantly  participating  in  this  labor,  and  not 
only  as  members  of  the  Union ;  but  the  same  tendency  per- 
meated their  own  political  institutions,  so  far  as  they  were 


GA0-BKS0LUTI0N8.  245 

not  the  direct  product  of  slavery.  If  Calhoun  wished  to 
put  a  limit  to  the  uninterrupted  and  progressive  undermin- 
ing of  slavery,  even  the  destruction  of  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  the  people  would  not  have  been  sufficient;  he  would 
have  been  obliged  to  have  a  constitution  adopted  which  pro- 
ceeded logically,  in  all  its  parts,  from  the  principle  of  slav- 
ery; he  would  have  been  obliged  to  change  the  institutions 
of  the  states,  the  slave  states  included,  from  their  very  foun- 
dation; he  would  have  had  to  wipe  out  the  country's  past, 
from  the  day  when  the  first  English  settlers  set  foot  on  the 
soil  of  the  new  world;  he  would  have  had  to  do  away  with 
all  contact  with  the  rest  of  the  civilized  world,  the  thought 
and  action  of  which  were  not  restricted  by  any  obligations 
to  the  constitution  of  the  republic.  These  were  the  reasons 
which  made  his  entering  the  lists  for  slavery  in  reality  a 
heavier  blow  against  it  than  all  the  attacks  of  the  abolition- 
ists. The  verification  by  facts  followed  on  the  heels  of  the 
warnings  of  his  opponents. 

On  the  26th  of  May,  1836,  the  house  of  representatives, 
by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  seventeen  against  sixty-eight, 
adopted  the  following  resolution,  which  was  introduced  by 
Henry  L.  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  in  the  name  of  a 
special  committee:  "  Resolved,  that  all  petitions,  memori- 
als, resolutions,  propositions  or  papers  relating  in  any  way, 
or  to  any  extent  whatever,  to  the  subject  of  slavery,  or  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  shall,  without  being  either  printed  or 
referred,  be  laid  upon  the  table,  and  that  no  further  action 
whatever  shall  be  had  thereon."^  "When  John  Quiney 
Adams  was  called,  he  answered  neither  aye  nor  nay,  but  ex- 
claimed, his  voice  rising  above  the  cries  of  order  which  came 
from  all  sides,  "  I  hold  the  resolution  to  be  a  direct  violation 
of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  rules  of  this 
house,  and  the  rights  of  my  constituents." 

»Deb.  of  C!ongr.,  XIU,  p.  28. 


246  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  texas. 

This  was  the  first  of  the  so  called  gag-resolutions,  and 
before  it  had  been  adopted,  the  man,  almost  a  septuagena- 
rian, who  had  been  fortj-two  years  in  his  country's  service, 
and  its  president  for  four  years,  declared  a  relentless  war 
against  it-  This  26th  of  May  is  one  of  the  most  memorable 
days  in  the  history  of  the  Union.  The  slavocracy  tied  the 
rope  which  the  abolitionists  had  twisted,  in  a  noose  about 
its  neck.  Calhoun's  principle  was  as  little  perceived  by  the 
house  as  by  the  senate,  but  the  resolution  of  the  house  drew 
down  on  the  slavocracy  all  the  evil  which  the  maintenance  of 
that  principle  would  have  had,  as  a  sequel.  And  what  that 
was,  the  south  had  alreadj^  been  informed  in  warning  tones,  by 
a  man  who  had  truly  shown  himself  a  devoted  servant  of  the 
slavocracy.  "  Let  it  be  once  understood,"  said  Buchanan, "  that 
the  sacred  right  of  petition  and  the  cause  of  the  abolitionists 
must  rise  or  must  fall  together,  and  the  consequences  may 
be  fatal."  ^  Keady  as  the  great  majority  of  the  northern 
population  might  be  to  support  the  slave  states  against  the 
abolitionists,  after  the  resolution  of  the  26th  of  May,  there 
was  question,  in  the  first  place,  neither  of  the  latter  nor  of 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  nor  of  slavery  in  gen- 
eral, but  of  the  right  of  petition  in  which  every  member  of 
the  nation  had  a  direct  interest,  and  of  the  more  important 
right  of  being  able  to  make  the  greatest  problem  with  which 
the  nation  was  confronted,  the  subject  of  the  discussion  in 
one  branch  of  the  national  legislature.  Not  because,  but 
spite  of,  the  fact,  that  the  Pinckney  resolution  was  occasioned 
by  the  abolitionist  agitation,  was  the  gauntlet  which  had 
been  flung  into  the  face  of  the  north  taken  up;  but  the  con- 
test caused  the  north  to  make  a  great  stride  towards  recog- 
nizing that  such  attacks  upon  the  pillars  of  the  republic,  and 
on  the  ultimate  bases  of  freedom,  were  the  inevitable  con- 
sequences of  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  slavery  itself. 

>  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  733. 


SIGHT   OF   PETITION.  247 

The  legal  question  which  most  directly  concerned  the  righl 
of  petition,  was  not  so  simple  as  seems  to  be  generally  as- 
sumed even  now  at  the  north.  The  provision  of  the  con- 
stitution in  question  reads:  "Congress  shall  make  no 
law  .  .  .  abridging  .  .  .  the  rights  of  the 
people  ...  to  petition  the  government  for  a  redress 
of  grievances."  The  right  construction  of  the  clause  obvi- 
ously requires  that  stress  should  be  laid  on  the  words  "  law  " 
and  '*  abridging."  Now,  the  resolution  of  the  26th  of  May 
was  not  a  law,  and  so  far,  therefore,  not  in  contradiction  with 
the  wording  of  this  provision.  But  congress  ought  obviously 
to  make  no  such  law,  for  the  simple  reason  that  that  should 
not  happen  which  would  be  produced  by  means  of  such  a 
law.  Hence,  of  course,  it  should  still  less  do  by  a  simple 
resolution  what  it  should  not  do  by  a  law,  since  in  the  passing 
of  a  resolution  all  the  barriers  are  wanting  which  the  con- 
stitution has  established  against  the  making  of  an  unconsti- 
tutional, injurious  or  foolish  law.  Hence  the  appeal  to  the 
word  "  law  "  was  completely  useless.  A  fundamental  rule  in 
the  construction  of  all  law  is,  that  the  legislator  should  be 
supposed  to  have  had  a  reasonable  intention;  and  if  we  make 
such  an  assumption  in  this  case,  the  provision  should  not  be 
understood  to  mean  that  congress  should  not  do  this  thing 
or  that  thing  only  by  a  law,  but  that  it  should  not  do  it  even 
by  means  of  a  law.  Hence,  the  question  amounted  simply 
to  this:  whether  the  resolution  was  an  abridgment  of  the 
right  of  petition.  To  decide  this  question,  it  was  necessary 
to  fix  the  limits  of  that  right.  The  constitution  says  nothing 
of  these  limits.  Since  it  only  prohibited  an  abridgment  of 
the  right,  it  must  have  recognized  the  right  itself  as  a  pre- 
existing right  of  the  people,  and  as  one  independent  of  its 
own  provisions.  Hence,  the  answer  to  the  question  could 
not  but  be  vague,  even  in  the  best  of  cases.  It  was  not  even 
possible  to  determine  beyond  question  what  was  the  source 


24:8  Jackson's  administbation  —  aistnexation  of  texas. 

from  which  the  judgment  should  be  drawn.  The  prevailing 
opinion  was  now,  as  it  had  been  before  the  adoption  of  the 
constitution,  that  the  provision  was  superfluous,  since  the 
general  government  had  only  those  rights  which  were 
granted  to  it  in  the  constitution,^  and  since  the  right  of 
petition  was  implied  in  the  nature  of  the  rej)ublican 
state.^  It  now  became  manifest  what  a  variety  of  things 
might  be  brought  to  tiie  light  out  of  this  dark  source.  That 
this  happened  was  all  the  more  natural  since  no  one  ventured 
to  claim  that  congress  stood  confronted,  its  hands  tied,  with 
an  unlimited  right  of  the  people.  Hence,  too,  the  necessity 
of  not  stopping  at  the  "  nature  of  the  republican  state  "  was 
felt.  People  asked  what  was  the  practice  and  the  legal 
course  of  procedure  in  the  parliament  of  England.  This 
was  entirely  natural  and  justifiable,  since  the  so-called  ''  bill 
of  rights  "  of  the  constitution,  and  especially  the  first  amend- 
ment, were  adopted  from  the  political  ideas  of  the  colonial 
period.  But  it  was  plain  that  English  usage  and  English 
law  were  not  legally  binding.  And  even  if  they  had  been 
legally  binding,  it  would  still  have  been  necessary  to  go  back 
to  the  ."nature  of  the  republican  state; "  that  is,  it  could  not 
be  said  with  certainty  what  the  law  was.  It  was  necessary 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  answer  to  the  question  what  should 
and  must  be  law.. 
To  the  right  of  petition  of  the  people,  it  was  necessary 

'  In  opposition  to  this  view  P.  Henry  said,  in  the  ratification  convention 
of  Virginia:  "  The  necessity  of  a  bill  of  rights  appears  to  me  to  be  greater 
in  this  government  than  ever  it  was  in  any  government  before."  Elliott, 
Deb.,  Ill,  p.  445.  The  adoption  of  the  first  amendment  was  the  work 
especially  of  Massachusetts,  New  York,  North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island, 
Ibid.,  IV,  p.  595. 

* "  This  would  seem  unnecessary  to  be  expressly  provided  for  in  a  repub- 
lican government,  since  it  results  from  the  very  nature  of  its  structure  and 
mstitutions."  Story,  Comm.,  §  1894  (II,  p.  619,  4th  ed.).  It  is  note- 
worthy that  Story  does  not  devote  even  a  page  to  the  right  of  petition. 


THE   EIGHT    OF   PETITION.  249 

that  there  should  be  a  corresponding  duty  of  the  govern- 
ment; and  from  the  nature  of  the  thing,  it  is  necessary 
that  the  duty  should  consist  in  receiving,  hearing  and  con- 
sidering the  petition.  That,  however,  this  duty  is  not  au 
absolute  one,  either  of  the  English  parliament  or  of  the 
congress  of  the  United  States,  appears  from  the  fact,  that  in 
both,  the  putting  of  the  question,  and  a  vote  on  it,  have 
always  been  required  before  receiving  the  petition.*  Further, 
parliament  and  congress  have  always  .been  the  sole  judges, 
in  what  cases  they  might,  with  propriety,  dispense  them- 
selves from  ihe  general  obligation;  their  responsibility  for 
an  abuse  of  this  power  is  not  a  legal,  but  only  a  political 
one.  According  to  the  parliamentary  rules  of  congress,  ob- 
jection may  be  made  to  even  the  presentation  of  a  petition 
without  giving  any  reason  for  the  objection,  and  so  there  is 
no  absolute  requirement  that  there  should  be  any  ground 
assigned  for  refusing  to  receive  it.*  Keasons  of  expediency 
have,  both  in  England  and  in  the  United  States,  led  to  the 
rule,  that  petitions  shall  be  read  only  after  their  reception 
has  been  resolved  upon.'  In  both  countries,  usage  excludes 
two  great  categories  of  petitions  from  being  received :  those 
that  are  couched  in  unbecoming  language,  and  those  that 
are  evidently  outside  of  the  competence  of  parliament  or  con- 
gress.*   But  the  refusal  to  accept  has  not  remained  limited 

'  In  December,  1640,  the  house  of  commons  appointed  a  committee  on 
petitions,  one  of  the  duties  of  which  it  was  "  to  see  what  petitions  are  fit 
to  be  received."  L.  St.  Gushing,  Elements  of  the  Law  and  Practice  of 
Legislative  AssembUes  in  the  United  States  of  America,  p.  454.  Jefferson 
says  in  his  Manual  of  Parliamentary  Practice:  "Regularly  a  motion  for 
receiving  it  must  be  made  and  seconded,  and  a  question  put.  Whether  it 
shall  be  received?  But  a  cry  from  the  house  of  'received,'  or  even  its 
silence,  dispenses  with  the  formality  of  this  question."  Jeff.'s  Works,  IX, 
p.  31. 

» Gushing,  p.  460. 

•Ibid.,  pp.  455,  461. 

^The  member  who  presents  the  i>eiition  with  a  short  recital  of  its  con- 


250  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

to  these  two  categories  in  parliament,  and  the  further  excep- 
tions have  been,  by  no  means,  based  simply  on  formal  de- 
fects^ in  the  petitions.^  If  it  was  at  all  competent  for  par- 
liament and  congress  to  reject  petitions  for  material  reasons 
before  they  had  come  into  their  possession,  it  is  not,  indeed, 
apparent  why  this  competence  in  the  premises  should,  in 
and  of  itself,  be  exhausted  by  these  two  cases.  Both  parlia- 
ment and  congress  had  established  these  two  exceptions,  of 
which  the  constitution  of  both  countries  said  as  little  as  of 
any  others,  of  their  own  motion.  If  these  were  justifiable, 
there  were  others  to  which  the  same  reasons,  or  reasons 
equally  pertinent,  might  be  made  to  apply. 

Hence  Calhoun's  claim,  that  congress  was  not  absolutely 
obliged  by  the  first  amendment  to  the  constitution  to  accept 
the  petitions  of  the  abolitionists,  simply  because  they  were 
petitions,  was  unquestionably  warranted.  And  if,  for  this 
reason  alone,  there  was  no  absolute  necessity  why  it  should 
accept  them,  still  less  could  there  be  any  absolute  necessity 
why  it  should  take  any  further  action  in  relation  to  them. 
The  resolution  of  the  house  of  representatives  of  May  26, 
did  not,  however,  refuse  to  accept  them,  but  only  prohibited 
any  action  after  they  were  received. 

The  practical  consequences  of  this  prohibition,  and  of  the 
refusal  to  accept  the  petitions,  were  the  same.    As  in  the  case 

tents,  is  responsible  to  the  house  that  in  both  these  respects  there  is  noth- 
ing objectionable  in  it.  If  the  case  seems  to  him  a  doubtful  one,  it  is  his 
duty  to  say  so  on  presenting  the  petition,  and  to  state  the  reasons  therefor. 

'  In  relation  to  these,  see  Gushing,  pp.  439-447. 

*  Among  the  examples  cited  by  Calhoun,  we  find  the  following:  "  On  the 
21st  December,  1706,  Resolved,  that  this  house  will  receive  no  petition  for 
any  sum  of  money  relating  to  public  service  but  what  is  recommended 
from  the  crown.  Upon  the  11th  of  .June,  1713,  this  is  declared  to  be  a 
standing  order  of  the  house."  Works,  II,  p.  476.  The  refusals  to  receive 
petitions  against  pending  bills  are  numerous.  The  whole  series  of  cases 
cited  in  Gushing,  pp.  451,  462  (§  1105),  is  not  concerned  with  at  least 
purely  formal  defects. 


THE   BIGHT   OF   PETITION.  2&1 

of  a  refusal  to  accept,  so  also  in  the  case  of  prohibition,  the 
question  of  constitutionality  had  to  be  decided  according  to 
this  —  whether  the  reasons  assigned  for  the  step  could  stand 
the  test  not  only  of  one  definite  constitutional  provision  or 
another,  but  the  test  also  of  the  genius  of  the  constitution  in 
its  entirety. 

It  was  not  pretended  that  the  unbecoming  language  of  the 
petitions  or  the  incompetency  of  congress '  made  the  Pinck- 
ney  resolution  necessary,  nor  was  it  left  to  the  people  to  dis- 
cover what  the  presumptive  reasons  were.  While  the  rela- 
tion of  congress  to  slavery  in  the  states  and  to  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  was  precisely  defined  in  two  bald  reso- 
lutions, the  makers  of  the  motion  thought  it  incumbent  on 
them  to  preface  the  gag-resolution  by  a  formal  statement  of 
the  reasons  which  dictated  it.  This  statement  was  as  fol- 
lows: "And  whereas,  it  is  extremely  important  and  desir- 
able that  the  agitation  of  this  subject  should  be  finally  ar- 
rested for  the  purpose  of  restoring  tranquillity  to  the  public 
mind,  your  committee  respectfully  recommend,"  etc.  The 
statement  of  reasons  was  accepted  with  the  resolution,  and 
hence  it  is  to  be  considered  that  of  the  house  and  not  that 
of  the  committee  only.  The  house,  therefore,  notified  the 
people  that  it  deprived  the  right  of  petition,  so  far  as  slav- 
ery was  concerned,  of  all  practical  value;  that  is,  that  the 
house  practically  abolished  it,  because  it  expected  by  so  do- 
ing to  restore  the  calm  of  public  feeling  which  seemed  de- 
sirable to  it.  If  it  were  authorized  to  do  this,  it  might,  of 
course,  practically  abolish  the  right  of  petition  in  relation  to 
every  other  question  the  discussion  of  which  would,  in  its 
opinion,  disturb  the  calm  of  public  feeling;  that  is,  it  was 

'  The  second  of  the  three  resolutions  was  as  follows :  "  That  congress 
ought  (!)  not  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  slavery  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia." It  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-two  against 
forty-five. 


252   JACKSON 'S  ADMINISTKATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

left  absolutely  to  congress  to  decide  in  respect  to  what  ques- 
tions it  would  allow  tlie  people  so  to  petition  that  their  peti- 
tioning might  come  to  have  a  meaning  through  the  possibil- 
ity of  its  having  practical  consequences:  the  right  of  peti- 
tion had  ceased  to  be  a  right.  Hence,  bj  the  statement  of 
reasons  by  which  it  pleased  the  house  to  preface  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  26th  of  May,  that  resolution  came  in  direct  con- 
flict with  the  first  amendment  to  the  constitution. 

But  there  was  no  need  of  this  statement  of  reasons  to 
demonstrate  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  resolution.  The 
nature  of  the  republican  state  postulates  the  right  of  petition. 
The  government  of  a  republic  does  not  exist  in  its  own  right. 
The  source  of  all  its  powers  is  the  people.  So  long  as  the 
state  is  a  republic,  not  only  in  name  but  in  reality,  there 
must  be  some  means  to  bring  the  wishes  of  the  people  before 
the  government,  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  the  duty  of  the 
latter  to  consider  them.  Hence,  it  was  entirely  correct  that 
the  constitution  represented  the  right  of  petition  as  a  right 
independent  of  and  existing  before  it;  for  the  constitution 
did  not  make  the  state  a  republic,  but  the  republican  people 
had  given  themselves  this  constitution,  and  the  right  of  peti- 
tion is  the  only  possible  means  corresponding  to  that  end. 
The  people,  indeed,  is  sovereign;  but  the  people  is  not  the 
aggregate  of  all  individuals  as  such,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
group  of  individuals  constituted  at  pleasure,  and  of  any  de- 
sirable magnitude,  but  the  population  in  its  political  organ- 
ization. The  governing  will  of  the  people  has  obtained  its 
fixed  expression  in  the  constitution,  and  it  further  continu- 
ally asserts  itself  in  the  manner  in  which  the  different  fac- 
tors of  the  government,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the 
constitution,  proceed  from  the  population.  Beyond  this,  it 
should  not  go,  if  the  government  is  really  to  remain  a  gov- 
ernment. If  the  government  places  itself  in  permanent  con- 
flict with  the  views  of  a  preponderant  majority  of  the  people, 


THE   SIGHT  OP   PETITION.  253 

it  perishes  of  itself  tlirough  the  regular  process  which  cre- 
ates it.  But  if,  while  it  is  a  government,  another  will  stands 
above  its  will  with  the  binding  force  of  law,  there  can  be  no 
such  thing  as  the  state,  for  the  idea  of  the  state  requires  that 
the  government  should  be  the  highest  organ  of  the  will  of 
the  state.^  It  should  not  be  commanded,  but  it  is  its  duty 
to  listen  to  the  wishes  of  the  people,  for  the  self-determina- 
tion of  the  people  remains  the  fundamental  principle  of  the 
republic,  and  both  the  views  and  wants  of  the  people  are 
always  in  course  of  development.  With  this  development 
the  government  must,  as  is  its  duty,  remain  in  official  con- 
tact, and  this  it  can  do  only  by  means  of  the  right  of  peti- 
tion.'^   Tlie  government  alone  has  to  decide  the  fulfillment 

'  The  word  "  government "  is  evidently  not  to  be  understood  here  in  the 
narrow  sense  attached  to  it  by  the  ordinary  usage  of  speech  tn  Europe. 

*  I  believe  that  I  have  said  enough  to  refute  the  sophistry  with  which, 
later,  a  part  of  the  northern  standard-bearers  of  the  south  sought  to  prove 
that  in  a  democratic  republic  the  right  of  petition  is  almost  meaningless. 
A  specimen  of  this  kind  of  reason,  however,  may  not  be  uninteresting  to 
the  reader :  "  But  this  '  right  of  petition, '  about  which  we  have  lately  heard 
80  much,  is  one  of  a  very  inferior  order,  and  one  to  the  construction  and 
application  of  which  every  American  democrat  must  bring  a  different 
spirit. 

"  It  seems,  indeed,  to  argue  a  strange  misapprehension  of  the  true  genius 
of  our  institutions,  to  insist  upon  this  as  one  of  the  cardinal  principles  of 
American  liberty.    .    .    . 

"  The  right  of  petition  is  no  longer  to  him  (the  American  citizen)  one  of 
those  dear  and  sacred  privileges  to  which  should  attach  the  inestimable 
value  now  claimed  for  it  by  those  who  use  it  avowedly  as  an  engine  for  the 
indirect  accomplishment  of  an  ulterior  object  beyond  the  conceded  scope  of 
constitutional  power  of  congress.  He  possesses  a  higher  right,  in  which 
the  inferior  is  overshadowed  and  reduced  to  insignificance,  the  right  of  dic- 
tation. Prayer,  in  affairs  of  human  government,  is  not  the  appropriate 
language  for  his  lip;  nor  can  he  who  eiyojrs  the  right  to  utter  the  accents  of 
command,  attach  any  peculiar  value  to  the  poor  privilege  of  supplication. 
The  American  citizen  possesses  the  freedom  of  speech,  of  the  press,  and  of 
the  ballot  box.  Every  newly  proposed  reform  has  free  scope  and  play 
through  these  instruments,  to  work  out  that  conviction  in  the  public  mind 


254:  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

of  wbat  wishes  is  legally  proper  and  expedient,  but  it  is  not 
authorized  to  prohibit  the  expression  of  any  wish  whatever 
as  inopportune,  or — which  amounts  to  the  same  thing — to 
recognize  a  duty  of  the  government  corresponding  to  the 
right  of  petition  of  the  people  only  to  the  extent  that  the 
petitions  seem  opportune  to  it.  A  right  the  limits  of  which 
are  to  be  determined  arbitrarily  by  the  obligated  party,  is  no 
right  whatever.  That  the  time  of  the  government  belong- 
ing to  the  state  may  not  be  made  the  plaything  of  fools  and 
knaves,  the  government  should  be  allowed  a  discretion  in  re-' 
spect  to  the  opportuneness  of  petitions  so  extensive,  that,  in 
any  given  case,  it  might  act  as  if  it  actually  had  the  powers 
above  mentioned.  If  the  house  of  representatives  had  been 
satisfied  to  do  this,  it  would  have  been  hard  to  produce  the 

requisite  to  make  it  practically  effectual.  The  privilege  of  addressing' 
prayer  to  the  temporary  depositaries  of  governmental  authority  delegated 
from  the  individual  citizen  himself,  constitutes  no  enlarging  or  strengthen- 
ing addition  to  these  means  of  influence.  What  cares  he  for  this  privilege  ? 
If  desirous  of  cairying  out  any  particular  reform,  can  he  not  write  freely 
for  it  in  newspapers  and  reviews  —  can  he  not  speak  freely  for  it  at 
the  street  comers,  from  the  house  tops,  in  the  frequent  popular  assem- 
blages? 

"  We  hold,  then,  that  we  are  in  no  respect  bound  to  construe  the  terms 
of  the  constitution  to  which  appeal  is  made,  in  the  same  large  and  liberal 
spirit  which  we  would  apply  to  the  other  rights  which  are  enumerated  in 
the  same  clause,  nor  to  extend  them  beyond  the  hmited  sense  fixed  by  a 
strict  construction  of  them.  And  in  the  present  case  all  those  who  enter- 
tain a  different  view  from  that  of  the  petitioners,  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
movement  of  which  these  petitions  have  been  made  the  principal  instru- 
ment, are  perfectly  justifiable  in  obeymg  the  motives  which  dictate  to  them 
the  duty  of  quieting  the  agitation  of  this  exciting  and  dangerous  topic  in 
congress,  provided  they  are  borne  out  by  the  plain  terms  of  the  constitu- 
tion, fairly  and  closely  construed.  If,  therefore,  '  congress  '  refram  from 
passmg  any  *  law '  abridging  '  the  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assem- 
ble, and  to  petition  for  a  redress  of  grievances,'  the  requisition  of  the  con- 
stitution is  sufficiently  satisfied."  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  April,  1840, 
pp.  336,  337,  338,  339.  Calhoun  had  already  developed  the  same  views  on 
the  13th  of  February,  1840,  in  the  senate.    Works,  III,  pp.  440,  444. 


THE   EIGHT   OF   PETITION.  255 

proof  of  a  violation  of  the  constitution.  But  it  was  an  easy 
matter  to  do  this  now,  since  the  house  had  laid  down  a  prin- 
ciple. Concrete  cases  had  to  be  dealt  with  no  longer;  all 
that  was  needed  was  to  produce  proof  against  this  principle. 
But  the  house  had  laid  down  a  principle  precisely  because  it 
did  not  decide  a  concrete  case,  but  because  it  had  lifted  a 
large  part,  in  its  entirety,  out  of  the  aggregate  of  the  national 
life,  and  had  dispensed  itself  in  relation  thereto  from  the 
duty  corresponding  to  the  people's  right  of  petition. 

But  the  resolution  of  the  26th  of  May  affected  by  no  means 
only  the  right  of  petition ;  it  entirely  banished  the  slavery 
question  from  the  house.  The  house  was  to  take  "  no  action 
whatever  "  on  any  "  propositions  "  or  "  papers  "  relating  "  in 
any  way  "  to  slavery.  If  this  resolve  were  conscientiously 
adhered  to,  the  door  was  henceforth  closed  even  against  the 
declaration  of  independence  and  against  the  constitution. 
But  even  leaving  such  consequences  as  this  of  its  absurd- 
ity out  of  consideration,  it  was  as  flagrant  a  violation  of 
the  constitution  as  can  well  be  imagined.  Either  the 
nation  had  an  interest  in  slavery,  or  it  had  none.  In  the  lat- 
ter case,  the  philosophers'  stone,  the  man  in  the  moon,  or  any 
other  substantive  whatever,  might  have  been  substituted  with 
propriety  for  the  word  slavery  in  the  resolution.  If  the 
house  did  not  proceed  on  the  assumption  that  the  nation  had 
an  interest  in  slavery,  the  resolution  was  simply  senseless. 
But  if  it  had  such  an  interest,  it  was  evidently  the  duty  of 
all  the  factors  of  government  to  concern  themselves  with  it 
within  the  limits  of  their  constitutional  authority.  Inas- 
much as  the  house  forbade  itself  to  do  this,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances whatever,  in  any  way  whatever,  it,  in  this  re- 
spect, abdicated  as  a  factor  of  government.  If  it  had  the 
right  to  act  in  this  way  in  one  question,  it  had  the  right  in 
all ;  it  was  left  to  the  pleasure  of  the  house  of  representatives 
to  say  when  and  in  what  the  people  should  have  the  national 


256  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

legislature  created  by  the  constitution,  or  get  along  with- 
out it. 

On  the  details  of  the  question  of  right,  many  erroneous 
views  might,  as  we  have  said,  prevail,  but  the  political  feel- 
ing of  the  people  was  too  well  developed  not  to  correctly  un- 
derstand its  most  material  points  from  the  very  first  moment. 
Where  this  was  not  the  case  in  the  north,  it  was  generally 
because  people  would  not  listen  to  their  better  conviction, 
or  because  they  would  not  allow  themselves  to  form  a 
better  conviction,  for  the  blow  was  directed  only  against 
the  abolitionists,*  and  no  peace-loving  citizen  and  upright 
patriot  could  desire  anything  better  than  that  the  tomahawk 
of  slavery  should  be  finally  buried,  even  if  Right  should  not 
get  all  that  belonged  to  it.  In  many  quarters,  at  first,  there 
was  a  reluctance  to  apply  the  touchstone  of  right  to  the  ques- 
tion, because  there  was  a  wish  not  to  lose  the  good  practical 
consequences  which  were  anticipated  from  the  successful 
coujp  de  main.  It  is  unquestionable  that  the  majority  of 
the  house  itself  were  determined  mainly  by  this  reason.  But 
grave  as  their  sin  against  Kight  was,  it  was  light  in  compari- 
son with  the  blow  which  they  had  dealt  against  their  own 
interests. 

The  very  wish  to  stifle  the  discussion  of  the  slavery  ques- 
tion bore  eloquent  testimony  to  how  actively  it  engaged  the 
thought  and  feeling  of  the  people.  And  if  the  endeavor  to 
compel  silence  on  such  a  question  is  always  attended  by  the 
opposite  result,  it  is  naturally  thus  attended  in  a  democratic 
republic  to  a  much  greater  extent.  It  is  certainly  ridiculous 
in  such  a  commonwealth  to  force  a  subject  out  of  the  halls 
of  the  legislative  power,  which  so  stirs  the  whole  people  that 
the  mere  mention  of  it  sends  the  blood  in  quicker  pulsations 

'  Adams  writes  in  April,  1837:  "The  passions  of  the  populace  are  all 
engaged  against  them."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IX,  p.  350. 


THE   EIGHT  OF  PETITION.  257 

to  tLe  heart  and  the  head.^  What  Storj  rightly  says  of  the 
right  of  petition  is  applicable  to  an  incomparably  greater 
extent  here:  such  an  attempt  could  not  be  successful  until 
nothing  was  left  of  the  republic  but  the  name,'  Even  if  it 
Avere  possible  to  be  permanently  silent  in  the  legislative  body 
of  a  democratic  republic  on  the  vital  interests  of  the  people, 
the  passions  of  the  people  would  have  had  to  find  expression 
in  it.  Supposing  even  that  the  wit  of  the  minority  was  so 
blunted  that  they  did  not,  spite  of  the  gag,  know  enough, 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  to  shout  out  the  forbidden  word, 
the  majority  would  have  made  it  the  order  of  the  day  when- 
ever they  had  an  opportunity  to  do  so.  The  steel  strikes 
sparks  from  the  flint.  Before  it  could  have  occurred  to  the 
majority  to  put  the  gag  in  operation,  their  irritability  must 
have  been  so  great  that  they  involuntarily  reacted  against 
the  slightest  touch  as  if  it  were  a  heavy  blow;  and  by  means 
of  the  gag,  they  brought  things  to  such  a  pass  that  the  club 
was  now  used  where  hitherto  there  had  been  but  the  slightest, 
most  considerate  intimation  of  opposition.  And  how  could 
it  be  otherwise  than  that  the  majority  themselves  should 
trample  the  gag  under  their  feet  more  frequently  and  more 
violently  than  any  others?  "Who  has  not  heard  the  amus- 
ing story  of  the  Irishman  who  had  to  defend  himself  every 
week  before  the  court  because,  in  his  untamable  passion  for 
the  blessed  peace,  he  was  forever  giving  his  neighbors  the 
worst  kind  of  a  dressing  to  compel  them  to  keep  it.     The 

'  Adams  writes,  April  19,  1837:  "  In  the  south  it  [slaveryl  is  a  perpetual 
agony  of  conscious  guilt  and  terror  attempting  to  disguise  itself  under 
sophistical  argumentation  and  braggart  menaces.  In  the  north,  the  peo- 
ple favor  the  whites  and  fear  the  blacks  of  the  south."  Mem.  of  J,  Q. 
Adams,  p.  349. 

*  "  It  is  impossible  that  it  could  be  practically  denied  until  the  spuit  of 
liberty  had  wholly  disappeared,  and  the  people  had  become  so  servile  and 
debased  as  to  be  unfit  to  exercise  any  of  the  privileges  of  freemen."  Story, 
Comm.,  §  1894.    {II,  p.  619). 

17 


258  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

representatives  of  the  south  in  congress  and  the  northern 
crowd  that  followed  them  imitated  tliis,  their  prototype,  with 
the  most  admirable  consistency  and  in  the  bitterest  earnest- 
ness, up  to  the  time  of  secession  and  after  it.  The  slavocracy 
had  always  had  fits  of  this  battle-mad  passion  for  peace,  but 
it  was  in  the  gag-resolutions  that  it,  for  the  first  time,  intro- 
duced method  into  its  madness,  and  consciously  gave  it  the 
fullest  rein.  In  its  relation  to  slavery,  congress  henceforth 
presented  the  picture  of  a  popular  assembly  which,  to  pre- 
serve the  peace,  raised  a  tumult  when  any  one  coughed  or 
sneezed,  and  soon  made  tumult  the  standing  order  of  the 
day  in  order  to  keep  cries  from  without  from  leading  any 
one  within  into  the  temptation  to  open  his  mouth.  The 
rage  for  quiet  became  more  and  more  general  and  more  and 
more  violent,  and  on  that  account,  precisely,  a  convincing 
proof,  which  became  more  and  more  convincing  every  day, 
that  the  restoration  of  quiet  was  impossible.  And  the 
wider  the  circle  of  those  who  reached  this  conviction  was, 
the  wider  grew  the  circle  of  those  who  saw  clearly  that  the 
gag-resolutions  undermined  the  foundation  of  the  republic. 
The  blows  dealt  by  both  sides  now  followed  one  another 
in  quick  succession.  The  resolution  of  the  26th  of  May 
ceased,  of  course,  to  have  any  validity  with  the  close  of  the 
session.  But  on  the  18th  of  January,  1837,  on  the  motion  of 
Hawes,  a  resolution  of  the  same  tenor  was  passed  by  a  ma- 
jority of  more  than  two-thirds.  But  Adams  did  not  allow 
this  to  mislead  him.  When  the  presentation  of  petitions 
was  the  order  of  the  day,  it  could  be  counted  on  with  cer- 
tainty that  he  would  hand  in  some  in  relation  to  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  vials  of 
wrath  of  his  southern  colleagues  were  full,  when,  on  the  6th 
of  February,  he  gave  them  a  blow  which  upset  them  and 
poured  out  on  him  the  last  drop  of  their  contents.  After 
he  had  handed  in  a  petition  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 


ADAMS  Am>  THE  BIGHT.  259 

District,  he  called  on  the  speaker  for  a  decision  before  he 
should  present  the  paper  he  held  in  his  hand  to  the  house. 
He  did  not  know,  he  said,  whether  it  fell  within  the  mean- 
ing of  the  resolution  of  the  18th  of  January,  as  it  was 
alleged  to  come  from  twenty-two  slaves. 

This  announcement  surprised  the  house  so  much  that  a 
few  moments  were  left  to  Adams  and  the  speaker  to  discuss 
questions  of  form.  But  when  these  had  elapsed  a  storm  broke 
out  such  as  the  house  had  not,  perhaps,  ever  experienced 
before.  One  motion  to  punish  the  audacious  man  followed 
quickly  on  the  heels  of  another.  All  demanded,  at  least,  that 
he  should  be  censured  by  the  speaker  before  the  bar  of  the 
house.  The  resolution  of  Lewis,  of  Alabama,  declared  that 
by  his  course  of  action  he  had  "  directly  "  incited  "  the  slave 
population  to  insurrection."*  Thompson, of  South  Carolina, 
reminded  him  that  there  were  grand  juries  in  the  District, 
and  intimated,  in  a  manner  which  could  not  be  misunder- 
stood, that  the  defiler  of  the  house  should  find  in  the  peni- 
tentiary the  punishment  he  deserved  for  the  attempt  to 
incite  uprisings  of  the  slaves.* 

»Deb.  of  Congrr.,  XHI,  p  269. 

•Thus,  according  to  the  "corrected  "  version  which  Thompson,  follow- 
ing the  prevailing  bad  custom,  substituted  for  what  he  had  really  said  in 
the  debate.  According  to  the  "  National  Intelligencer, "  the  sentence  was  as 
follows:  "  Does  that  gentleman  know  that  there  are  laws  in  all  the  slave 
states,  and  here,  for  the  punishment  of  those  who  excite  insurrection?  I 
can  tell  him  that  there  are  such  things  as  grand  juries ;  and  if,  sir,  the 
juries  of  this  district  have,  as  I  doubt  not  they  have,  proper  intelligence  and 
spirit,  he  may  yet  be  made  amenable  to  another  tribunal,  and  we  yet  see 
an  incendiary  brought  to  condign  punishment."  He  did  say  verbally:  "  It 
is  a  violation  of  the  criminal  law  of  this  district.  What  is  the  differenoe 
between  presenting  the  petitions  of  slaves  to  be  emancipated  and  aiding 
them  to  escape?  My  life  on  it,  if  the  gentleman  has  the  courage  to  cany 
it  thus  far,  and  will  present  that  petition  —  my  life  on  it,  we  shall  see  him 
within  the  walls  of  a  penitentiary  ! "  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  February  9,  1837,  appended  to  the  Letters  from  J.  Q. 
Adams  to  His  Constituents,  Boston,  1837,  p.  55. 


2f)0  Jackson's  ADMiNiSTEAiroiir  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Adams  had  weathered  too  many  storms  without  turning 
the  helm  one  hair's  breadth  from  the  line  which  the  compass 
of  duty  seemed  to  point  out  to  him,  to  blink  now  that  he  was 
on  the  verge  of  the  grave,  at  the  cracking  of  the  slave- whip.' 
But  his  heart  might  well  swell  with  bitterness  and  unspeak- 
able sorrow  that  he,  with  his  white  hairs,  who  had  served  his 
country  so  long  and  so  faithfully,  and  who  had  been  so 
highly  honored  by  his  country,  should  now  be  treated  in  the 
halls  of  his  country's  legislature  like  a  rogue  and  an  outcast, 
because  he  had  dared  to  take  in  his  hand  a  document  which 
bore  the  signature  of  slaves,  and  to  open  his  mouth  concerning 
it.  In  this  struggle  it  was  often  called  to  mind  how  even  the 
good  thief  dared  to  petition  Christ  on  the  cross.  This  may 
to-day  seem  insipid  to  many.  But  if  we  endeavor  to  really 
live  those  times  over  again  with  the  people,  we  shall  be  able 
to  understand  the  feeling  which  involuntarily  direct-ed  their 
looks  to  the  appalling  picture  on  Calvary.  It  is  something 
overpoweringly  tragical  to  see,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  a 
great,  civilized  people,  who,  in  many  respects,  rightly  boasted 
that  they  were  the  freest  people  on  earth,  treating  the  belief 
that  to  those  from  whom  all  had  been  taken,  it  might  be  that 
the  right  of  petition  still  remained,  as  a  crime  which  deprived 
one  of  his  honor.  The  endeavor  to  have  Adams  censured 
before  the  bar  of  the  house  is  one  of  the  darkest  of  the  many 
dark  pages  of  the  history  of  slavery  in  the  United  States. 

'  Unfortunately,  there  is  a  break  in  Adams'  diary  from  January  4  to 
April  2.  But  he  writes  later,  in  reference  to  this  procedure:  "The  ex- 
posure tlirough  which  I  passed  at  the  late  session  of  congress  was  greater 
than  I  could  have  imagined  possible;  and,  having  escaped  from  that  fiery 
furnace,  it  behooves  me  well  to  consider  my  ways  before  I  put  myself  in 
the  way  of  being  cast  into  it  again. 

'•  On  the  other  hand,  may  God  preserve  me  from  the  craven  spuit  of 
shrinking  from  danger  in  the  discharge  of  my  duty!  Between  these  two 
errors  let  me  pursue  the  path  of  rectitude  unmoved,  and  put  my  trust  in 
God."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IX,  p.  350. 


ADAMS    "exculpated."  261 

And  yet,  Lad  not  the  representatives  of  the  south  to  look 
upon  tlie  vindication  of  tlie  right  of  petition  of  the  slaves  as 
a  dreadful  attempt  ?  It  would  be  hard  to  prove  that  the 
answer  should  be  a  negative  one. 

The  tragic  in  this  procedure  was  not  exhausted  when  the 
comic  also  began  to  assert  its  rio:hts  to  the  fullest  extent 
After  Adams  had  allowed  the  storm  to  rage  for  a  time,  he, 
with  the  utmost  mildness,  requested  his  accusers  to  permit 
him  to  propose  a  small  alteration  of  their  motions.  They 
might  punish  him  as  severely  as  they  thought  proper.  But 
they  should  first  correct  an  error  which  had  crept  into  all  the 
argument  in  favor  of  their  different  propositions:  The  pe- 
tition did  not  pray  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  for  tlie 
very  opposite.  And  this  was  not  the  only  error  into  which 
the  gentlemen  had  fallen.  He  had  not  presented  the  petition 
at  all.  Eather  had  he  expressly  declared  that  he  would  not 
present  it  until  the  speaker  had  decided  whether  a  petition 
from  slaves  was  covered  by  the  resolution  of  the  18th  of 
January. 

One  must  read  the  entire  debates  to  appreciate  the  scenes 
which  occupied  the  rest  of  that  day  and  the  7th  and  9th  of 
February.  Abijah  Mann,  of  New  York,  was  the  first  to 
take  the  floor  after  these  surprising  communications.  The 
most  essential  thing  in  his  unctuous  speech  was  the  not  very 
figurative  reminder  that  Adams  was  far  gone  in  the  years  of 
his  second  childhood.  Thompson  followed  with  the  decla- 
ration that  Adams  had  only  injured  his  case,  since  he  had 
"irritated  almost  to  madness"  the  representatives  of  the 
slave  states,  for  his  amusement^    Still,  from  this  point  of 

•  "  What,  sir,  is  it  a  mere  trifle  to  hoax,  to  trifle  with  the  members  from 
the  south  in  this  way  and  on  this  subject?  Is  it  a  light  thing,  for  the 
amusement  of  others,  to  irritate,  almost  to  madness,  the  whole  delegation 
from  the  slave  states?  •  Sir,  it  is  an  aggravation.  It  is  intimated  that  the 
petition  does  not  pray  for  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  a  very  different  ob- 
ject.   It  makes  not  the  slightest  difference;  it  is  the  attempt  to  introduce 


262  Jackson's  administration — annexation  oftexas. 

view,  an  effort  was  made  to  subject  Adams  to  censure.  Adams 
had  to  be  punished,  not  for  what  he  had  done,  but  for  what 
he  had  wished  to  do;  or  —  as  they  were  soon  compelled  to 
saj — because  he  had  not  corrected  the  erroneous  assumptions 
of  the  house  as  to  his  intentions.  The  gigantic  and  angry 
spirit  of  the  slavocracy  had  to  dwindle  to  smaller  and  smaller 
proportions,  until  it  was  again  inclosed  in  the  vessel  the 
seals  of  which  the  bold  old  man  had  broken,  and  the  majority 
had  enough  of  the  feeling  of  decency  to  leave  him  the  possi- 
bility of  the  satisfaction  of  putting  the  cover  on  it  himself. 
Yauderpoel,  of  Kevv  York,  had,  indeed,  the  effrontery  to 
move  the  previous  question,  the  adoption  of  which  would  not 
have  allowed  Adams  to  speak.  Seventy-eight  other  members 
lent  a  hand  in  this  childish  prank,  but  one  hundred  refused 
to  agree  to  it.  In  this  way  Abijah  Mann  was  afforded  an 
opportunity  to  learn  what  power  there  still  was  in  those 
withered  arms.  Adams  unmercifully  lacerated  with  the 
scourge  of  his  moral  indignation  the  pack  of  hounds  that 
had  hung  on  his  heels,  and  into  every  scar  he  poured  a  full 
measure  of  the  corrosive  acid  of  his  sarcasm.^  Resolution 
after  resolution  was  rejected,  and  the  house  was  glad  when 
the  "  old  man  eloquent "  was  finally  "  exculpated." 

On  the  8th  of  February  the  debate  on  Adams'  crime  had 
to  be  interrupted  because  the  official  counting  of  the  elect- 
oral vote  took  place,    l^ot  quite  four  weeks  later,  Yan  Buren 

a  petition  from  slaves  for  any  object;  as  insolent  if  it  be  for  one  pin-pose  aa 
for  another.  It  is  the  naked  fact  of  the  presentation  of  a  petition  from 
slaves."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  271. 

'  Thompson  fared  worst  of  all.  Adams  reminded  him  of  the  provision  of 
the  constitution  that  no  member  of  either  of  the  two  houses  of  congress 
should  be  made  responsible  anywhere  else  for  anything  said  in  them,  and 
exhorted  him,  when  he  returned  to  his  "  slaveholding  constituents,"  "to 
study  a  little  of  the  first  principles  of  civil  liberty."  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  February  9,  1837,  p.  56.  Although  Ben- 
ton, in  his  Debates  of  Congress,  gives  an  unusually  long  account  of  this 
debate,  he  omits  the  biting  "  to  his  slaveholding  constituents." 


blade's  motion.  263 

assumed  the  presidency.  He  had  reason  enough,  therefore, 
for  the  fear  expressed  indirectly  in  his  inaugural  address, 
that  his  term  of  office  would  be  visited  by  very  severe  storms 
on  the  slavery  question. 

The  attention  of  the  extraordinary  session  of  congress  was 
entirely  claimed  by  the  commercial  crisis.^     But  as  soon  as 
it  was  possible  to  turn  to  other  things,  the  dance  was  resumed 
to  the  sound  of  livelier  music.     The  twenty-fifth  congress 
met,  in  its  first  regular  session,  on  the  4:th  of  December,  1837, 
and,  on  the  20th,  a  scene  occurred  in  the  house  of  represent- 
atives more  dreary  and  more  pregnant  with  consequences 
than  that  which  had  occurred  in  February.     "William  Slade, 
of  Vermont,  joined  to  the  presentation  of  some  abolitionist 
petitions  the  motion  that  they  should  be  referred  to  an  ex- 
traordinary committee,  with  instructions  to  bring  in  a  bill 
for  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the  slave  trade  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.     This  motion  went  a  great  deal  farther  than 
all  the  motions  which  had  ever  been  made  before  in  relation 
to  slavery  in  the  District.     There  was,  of  course,  no  question 
of  a  possibility  that  it  would  be  adopted.     But  the  naked 
fact  that  the  word  was  spoken  threw  the  entire  representa- 
tion of  the  south  into  a  paroxysm  of  rage.     Slade's  speech 
was  again  calculated  to  drive  them  "  almost  to  madness." 
"What  is  slavery?"  —  such  was  the  simple  question  which 
it  wished  to  find  an  answer  to  from  the  slave  laws  and 
the  views  of  the  great  patriots  of  the  republic.     But  this 
simple  question  involved  the  fate  of  the  south  and  of  the 

*  Petitions,  however,  came  in  in  great  numbers  during  this  session. 
A.dams  writes  on  the  15th  of  September:  "  I  have  been  for  some  time  oc- 
cupied day  and  night,  when  at  home,  in  assorting  and  recording  the  peti- 
tions and  remonstrances  against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  other  anti> 
slavery  petitions,  which  flow  upon  me  in  torrents."  And  on  September 
26th:  "  I  presented  petitions  and  memorials  for  the  aboUtion  of  slavery; 
and  multitudes  were  presented  by  other  members. ' '  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
rX,  pp.  377,  380;  see  also,  pp.  387,  397. 


264:  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Union.  Tlie  moment  that  the  majority  gave  themselves  a 
correct  and  exhaustive  answer  to  this  question,  was  the  de- 
cisive moment.  If  it  could  only  be  suppressed,  the  struggle 
about  the  rights  of  the  slave  states  might  be  carried  on  to 
the  end  of  time.  Hence  the  convulsive  efforts  to  make  it 
appear  that  the  slavery  question  was  completely  covered  by 
the  question  of  the  rights  of  the  slave  states.  If  it  w^ere  in 
the  power  of  nations  to  put  their  pleasure  in  the  place  of  the 
laws  of  national  life,  founded  in  the  nature  of  things,  this 
might  have  been  right.  But  as  this  is  not  the  case,  the 
question  of  law  could  cover  the  whole  question,  that  is,  the 
political  question,  only  so  long  as,  and  to  the  extent  that, 
positive  law  and  the  action  of  those  laws  did  not  conflict 
with  one  another. 

One  call  to  order  after  another  interrupted  Slade's  speech. 
He  was  not  permitted  to  read  a  judicial  decision  nor  a  memo- 
rial of  Franklin.  To  recall  what  was  thought  of  slavery  fifty 
years  before  in  Yirginia,  and  what  the  continental  congress 
had  done  in  relation  to  it,  was  out  of  order.  Since  the  mo- 
tion had  relation  only  to  the  District,  every  word  about 
slavery  anywhere  else  and  at  any  previous  time  was  im- 
proper. Although,  in  this  way,  all  argument  in  favor  of  the 
motion  was  rendered  impossible,  the  speaker,  John  "White, 
of  Kentucky,  did  not  refrain  from  granting  the  desired  call 
to  order.  After  a  sturdy,  manful  resistance,  Slade  was 
obliged  to  sit  down  without  having  completed  even  the  in- 
terrupted sentence. 

But  even  before  his  mouth  had  been  closed  by  the 
twenty-second  rule,  which  had  scarcely  ever  before  been 
enforced,  Wise,  of  Yirginia,  had  called  upon  his  colleagues 
to  leave  the  hall  with  him.  His  example  was  followed 
by  Halsey,  of  Georgia,  and  Rhett  announced  in  a  ^stento- 
rian  voice,  that  the  representatives  of  South  Carolina  had 
resolved  to  meet  in  consultation  in  the  committee-room  for 


SECESSION. 


265 


the  District  of  Columbia.  None  of  tliera  bad,  according 
to  the  rules  of  tbe  bouse,  the  right  to  take  tlie  floor,  but  for 
them  the  speaker  had  no  call  to  order. 

After  Slade  had  been  finally  compelled  to  be  silent,  the 
motion  of  Rencher,  of  North  Carolina,  to  adjourn  was 
adopted,  the  names  having  been  called,  bj  a  vote  of  one 
hundred  and  six  against  sixty-three.*  While  the  resolution 
was  announced,  Campbell,  of  South  Carolina,  jumped  on  his 
chair  and  invited  all  the  representatives  of  the  slave  states 
to  the  consultation  in  the  committee  room  of  the  District 
already  announced. 

The  southern  gentlemen  wished  to  have  it  considered  that 
this  invitation  had  been  given  before  the  adjournment  had 
been  really  made.  They  liked  to  speak  of  the  "  memorable 
SECESSION  of  the  southern  members  from  the  hall  of  the 
house  of  representatives."  Now  that  the  ominous  word  was 
for  the  first  time  rightly  put  in  circulation,  it  was  imdoubted 
that  the  people  would  become  gradually  familiar  with'the 
idea,  under  certain  circumstances,  of  changing  the  word 
into  the  deed.  Beyond  this,  the  wishes  of  the  people  no- 
where went;  but  those  of  the  radicals  went  thus  far.  Rhett, 
of  South  Carolina,  had  intended  to  introduce  an  amendment 
to  Slade's  motion,  to  the  effect  that  an  extraordinary  com- 
mittee should  be  charged  to  report  on  the  best  means  towards 
a  peaceful  dissolution  of  the  Union,  for  the  reason  that  the 
constitution  did  not  protect  the  south  in  the  peaceable  pos- 
session and  enjoyment  of  its  peculiar  institutions:  tlie  south 
should  have  its  course  pointed  out  to  it.* 

'Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  11,  p.  152.  In  the  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIIT, 
p.  565,  Benton  gives  one  hundred  and  sixty-six  against  sixty-three.  It  is 
not  possible  to  reconcile  with  this  the  statement  that  fifty  or  sixty  had  pre- 
viously left  the  hall. 

* Rhett  says,  in  a  report  to  his  constituents:  " In  a  private  and  friendly 
letter  to  the  editor  of  the  'Charleston  Mercury,'  amongst  other  events 
accompanying  the  memorable  secession  of  the  southern  members  from  the 


260  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

The  great  majority  of  the  southern  delegates  did  not  wish 
to  oro  so  far  in  their  demonstrations,  nor  to  confine  them- 
selves  to  idle  demonstrations.  They  had  confidence  still  in 
the  efficacy  of  the  gag.  The  following  day  Patton,  of  Yir- 
ginia,  asked  leave  of  the  house  to  recommend  another  gag, 
after  the  model  of  the  one  previously  put  in  operation.^  As 
Adams  raised  an  objection,  the  rules  had  to  be  suspended. 
This  was  done  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-five 
against  sixty.  This  vote  really  showed  the  attitude  of  the 
house  to  the  question.  That  afterwards,  in  the  vote  on  the 
resolution  itself,  the  nays  increased  to  seventy-four,  and  the 
ayes  decreased  to  one  hundred  and  twenty-two,  was  only,  as 
Benton  says,  because  some  of  the  members  from  the  north- 
ern states  did  not  wish  uselessly  to  create  trouble  for  them- 
selves with  their  constituents,  after  they  had  helped  the  south 
in  what  was  most  material  by  their  first  vote.* 

hall  of  the  house  of  representatives,  I  stated  to  him  that  I  had  prepared 
two  resolutions,  drawn  as  amendments  to  the  motion  from  the  member  of 
Vermont,  whilst  he  was  discussing  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the  south, 
*  declaring  that,  the  constitution  having  failed  to  protect  the  south  in  the 
peaceable  possession  and  enjoyment  of  their  rights  and  peculiar  institutions, 
it  was  expedient  that  the  Union  should  be  dissolved;  and  the  other,  ap- 
pointing a  committee  of  two  members  from  each  state,  to  report  upon  the 
best  means  of  peaceably  dissolving  it,'  ...  I  expected  them  to  share 
the  fate  which  inevitably  awaited  the  original  motion,  so  soon  as  the  floor 
could  have  been  obtained,  viz.,  to  be  laid  upon  the  table.  My  design  in 
presenting  them  was,  to  place  before  congress  and  the  people  what,  m  my 
opinion,  was  the  true  issue  upon  this  great  and  vital  question;  and  to  point 
out  the  course  of  policy  by  which  it  should  be  met  by  the  southern  states." 
Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  11,  p.  152. 

'  "  Resolved,  That  all  petitions,  memorials  and  papers  touching  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  or  the  buying,  selling  or  transferring  of  slaves,  in  any 
state,  district  or  territory  of  the  United  States,  be  laid  on  the  table  without 
being  debated,  printed,  read  or  referred,  and  that  no  further  action  what- 
ever shall  be  had  thereon."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  566.  It  deserves  to 
be  called  attention  to  that  here  the  territories  are  expressly  mentioned. 

*  TMrty  Years'  View,  II,  p,  154.  To  suspend  the  rules,  a  majority  of 
two-thirds  was  necessary;  to  adopt  the  resolution,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
gimple  majority. 


,   •  Calhoun's  position.  267 

That  the  experiment  to  decree  away  the  existence  of  the 
slavery  question,  was  repeated,  could  not  be  a  matter  of  sur- 
prise. More  unexpected  was  Patton's  declaration  that  the  gag 
was  a  "  concession  "  made  by  the  south  "  for  the  sake  of  peace, 
harmony  and  union."  "  In  that  spirit "  he  closed  his  re- 
marks by  moving  the  previous  question.  Adams'  protests 
were  howled  down,  the  previous  question  resolved  upon,  the 
resolution  adopted,  and  even  before  a  champion  of  freedom 
and  of  the  constitution  could  open  his  mouth,  the  magnani- 
mous south  had  graciously  put  a  patent  lock  on  the  lips  of 
the  north. 

Adams  subsequently  called  the  circumlocutions  of  the 
constitution  for  the  words  slave  and  slavery,  the  fig-leaves 
which  covered  the  nakedness  of  the  republic.^  Of  what  ad- 
vantage these  coverings  of  shame  were,  the  history  of  the 
Union  under  the  constitution  for  fifty  years  showed.  Some- 
thing might  have  been  learned  from  this  experience  for  the 
question  now  treated.  The  proceedings  in  the  senate  were 
the  commentatorial  marginal  notes  to  the  endeavors  of  the 
house  of  representatives.  While  in  the  latter,  the  south 
sought  to  hide  the  slavery  question  from  the  whole  world  in 
the  dungeons  of  its  resolutions,  in  the  former  its  most  dis- 
tinguished representative,  with  violent  hand,  tore  one  cover- 
ing after  another  from  Its  ulcerated  members,  and  — to  crown 
the  dreadful  irony — to  reach  the  same  end. 

The  day  after  Adams  had  been  threatened  by  Thompson 
with  the  penitentiaiy,  Calhoun  vented  himself  in  the  senate 
again  in  a  long  speech  on  the  subject  of  the  abolitionist  peti- 
tions. He  did  not  repeat  the  futile  attempt  to  have  their  ac- 
ceptance refused,  and  he  touched  only  lightly  on  the  question  of 

'  "The  words  slave  and  slavery  are  studiously  excluded  from  the  consti- 
tution. Circumlocutions  are  the  fig-leaves  under  which  these  parts  of  the 
body  politic  are  decently  concealed."  Ai^^ment  of  J.  Q.  Adams  in  the 
Amistad  Case,  p.  39. 


268    JACKSON*S  ADHnNISTBATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

right,  although  he  asserted  the  principle  in  sharper  accents 
that  congress  should  not  discuss  the  question  at  all.^  The 
speech  is  eminently  political,  and  he  again,  keeping  pace  with 
events,  took  a  great  stride  beyond  his  last  position.  How 
ill  understood  has  this  remarkable  man  been  even  up  to  the 
present  time!  Almost  withaut  exception,  he  is  spoken  of  as 
if,  like  Minerva  from  the  head  of  Jupiter,  he  had  sprung 
from  the  flanks  of  slavery  clad  in  tlie  complete  armor  of  his 
doctrines.  AVhat  is  precisely  most  remarkable  in  him  is, 
that  this  rigid  doctrinarian  is  the  only  person  whose 
thought  kept  fully  equal  pace  with  the  development  of  the 
actual  condition  of  affairs. 

The  position  now  assumed  by  Calhoun  was  that  the  spirit 
of  abolitionism  would  not  die  out  of  itself  nor  without  a  vio- 
lent shock.  The  proof  of  the  correctness  of  this  assertion 
was  that  it  had  insinuated  itself  into  the  pulpit,  the  schools 
and  the  press.  "  However  sound  the  great  body  of  the  non- 
slaveholding  states  are  at  present,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years 
they  will  be  succeeded  by  those  who  will  have  been  taught 
to  hate  the  people  and  institutions  of  nearly  one-half  of  this 
Union  with  a  hatred  more  deadly  than  one  hostile  nation 
ever  entertained  towards  another."^  But  a  state  alliance  "  un- 
der the  same  political  system,"  was  entirely  impossible  and 
unthinkable  when  that  on  which  "the  very  existence "  of 
the  one-half  "  depends  "  is  considered  "  sinful  and  odious  in 
the  sight  of  God  and  man  "  by  the  other  half. 

How  well  did  this  fanatical  champion  of  slavery  under- 
stand the  moral  nature  of  the  state,  and  how  clearly  he 
recognized  that  no  clamp  of  positive  law  could  resist  the  wedge 

'  "  The  most  unquestionable  right  may  be  rendered  doubtful,  if  once  ad- 
mitted to  be  a  subject  of  controversy,  and  that  would  be  the  case  in  the 
present  instance.  The  subject  is  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  congress  — 
they  have  no  right  to  touch  it  in  any  shape  or  form,  or  to  make  it  the  sub- 
ject of  deliberation  or  discussion."    Works,  II,  p.  627. 

•Works,  II,  p.  629. 


CALHOUN   ON   SLAVERY. 

of  an  ethical  principle.  Hence  he  now,  for  the  first  time, 
asserted,  in  the  most  pointed  manner,  the  decisive  principle 
which  he  had  always  hitherto  only  allowed  to  be  the  unex- 
pressed consequence  of  his  doctrines:  the  north  and  the  south, 
are  not  placed  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  each  other  by 
a  moral  principle.  The  question  the  discussion  of  which 
the  house  of  representatives  avoided  above  all  things,  Cal- 
houn boldly  raised,  and  he  answered  it  in  a  manner  which 
certainly  absolutely  forbade  the  introduction  of  the  slave 
code  as  a  witness,  or  the  caring  what  Virginia  had  thought 
upon  the  subject  fifty  years  before.  Slavery  is  a  "  good,"  "  a 
positive  good,"  and  the  safest  foundation  of  free  institutions  * 
—  such  was  his  position  from  this  time  forward,  one  to  which 
he  rapidly  drew  after  him  the  largest  part  of  the  south. 

The  fundamental  defect  of  this  reasoning  again,  was 
the  assumption  that  everything  depended  on  the  action  of 
congress.'  It  was  certain  that  it  would  necessarily  operate 
either  to  promote  or  restrict  slavery;  but  that  the  final  de- 

'  "  We  of  the  south  vrill  not,  cannot  surrender  our  institutions.  To  main- 
tain the  existing  relations  between  the  two  races  inhabiting  that  section 
of  the  Union,  is  indispensable  to  the  peace  and  happiness  of  both.  It  can- 
not be  subverted  without  drenching  the  country  in  blood,  and  extirpating 
one  or  the  other  of  the  races.  Be  it  good  or  bad,  it  has  grown  up  with  our 
society  and  institutions,  and  is  so  interwoven  with  them,  that  to  destroy  it 
would  be  to  destroy  us  as  a  people.  But  let  me  not  be  understood  as 
admitting,  even  by  implication,  that  the  existing  relations  between  the  two 
races  in  the  slaveholding  states  is  an  evil — far  otherwise;  I  hold  it  to  btf 
a  good,  as  it  has  thus  far  proved  itself  to  be  to  both,  and  will  continue  to 
prove  so  if  not  disturbed  by  the  fell  spirit  of  aboUtion.  ...  I  hold  that 
in  the  present  state  of  civiHzation,  where  two  races  of  difTerent  origin,  and 
distinguished  by  color,  and  other  physical  differences,  as  well  as  intellec- 
tual, are  brought  together,  the  relation  now  existing  in  tlie  slaveholding 
states  between  the  two,  is,  instead  of  an  evil,  a  good — a  positive  good. 
.  .  .  I  fearlessly  assert  that  the  existing  relation  between  the  two  races 
in  the  south,  against  which  these  blind  fanatics  are  waging  war,  forms  the 
most  solid  and  durable  foundation  on  which  to  rear  free  and  stable  pohti- 
cal  institutions."    Ibid.,  pp.  630,  631.  632. 


270   JACKSON'S  ADMINISTEATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

cision  could  never  be  given  by  congress,  Calhoun  himself 
had  irrefutably  proved.  The  moral  convictions  of  the  peo- 
ple, which  he  had  rightly  designated  as  the  decisive  force, 
lay  outside  the  sphere  of  congressional  power  not  only  con- 
stitutionally, but  in  fact.  If  the  day  were  never  to  come  when 
another  generation  should  take  the  place  of  the  present 
"  sound "  generation,  grown  up  under  the  influence  of  the 
spirit  which  had  taken  possession  of  the  pulpit,  the  schools, 
and  the  press,  it  was  evident  that  this  spirit  should  be  ex- 
pelled, or  at  least  its  further  spread  be  prevented.  And  what 
power  was  there  to  do  this?  Calhoun  himself  gave  the  un- 
doubtedly correct  answer  to  this  question.  He  ridiculed  the 
attempt  of  the  house  of  representatives  to  "  reason  down  " 
the  spirit  of  abolitionism.  This  only  made  the  evil  worse.* 
What  means  are  there  but  reasons  to  change  convictions?  If 
there  are  any  others,  they  are  certainly  inapplicable  in  a 
democratic  republic.  Calhoun,  therefore,  did  not  presume 
to  change  the  conviction  according  to  which  slavery  was  "  sin- 
ful and  odious  in  the  sight  of  God  and  man,"  nor  even  to  pre- 
vent its  further  spread.  All  he  wished  w^as  to  repress  its 
manifestations,  and  even  this  only  to  the  extent  that  they  ap- 
peared before  the  forum  of  congress.  Did  not  this  powerful 
thinker  see  with  how  frail  a  straw  he  was  running  against 
the  windmill's  wings?  Even  supposing  that  slavery  was  a 
positive  good  and  the  safest  basis  of  free  institutions,  of  what 
tise  was  this  so  long  as  he  could  not  convince  the  north,  at  least, 
that  it  was  not  sinful  and  odious.  If  it  were  impossible  now, 
and  to  remain  impossible  in  the  future,  to  make  way  for  this 
conviction,  it  was,  so  far  as  the  practical  consequences  were 

'  "  We  are  told  that  the  most  effectual  mode  of  arresting  the  progress  of 
abolition  is,  to  reason  it  down;  and  with  this  view  it  is  urged  that  the  pe- 
titions ought  to  be  referred  to  a  committee.  That  is  the  very  ground  which 
was  taken  at  the  last  session  in  the  other  house,  but  instead  of  arresting 
its  progress  it  has  since  advanced  more  rapidly  than  ever."  Works,  II, 
p.  627. 


oalhottn's  prophecies.  271 

concerned,  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  the  north  and 
the  south  were  placed  in  irreconcilable  opposition  to  one 
another  by  a  moral  principle,  or  whether  it  was  only  the 
short-sightedness  and  fanaticism  of  the  north  which  saw  the 
matter  in  that  light.  The  convictions  of  men  make  a  moral 
principle  a  working  power  among  them,  and  what  they  con- 
sider a  moral  principle  works  as  a  moral  principle  among 
them.  So  long  as  the  north  harbored  that  foolish  conviction 
about  slavery,  and  to  the  extent  that  it  harbored  it,  Calhoun's 
opposite  allegation,  that  slavery  was  a  positive  good,  must 
have  operated  as  a  powerful  impulse  to  intensify  the  oppo- 
sition. 

Did  Calhoun  really  not  recognize  this ?  It  has  been  repeat- 
edly shown  that  his  thinking  always  proceeded  from  one  of 
the  two  opposite  premises  which  lay  at  the  foundation  of  the 
constitution  and  of  the  actual  state  of  things.  The  more 
logical  his  thinking  was,  therefore,  the  farther  must  it  have 
led  him  from  the  consequences  which  followed  from  the  other. 
Wliilehe,  with  unhypocritical  indignation,  repelled  the  charge 
that  his  endeavors  to  quench  the  fire  only  served  to  fan  the 
flames,  he  announced,  in  a  really  prophetic  spirit,  how  broad 
a  chasm  would  one  day  yawn  between  the  two  convictions. 
So  dense  was  the  darkness  still  before  the  eyes  of  his  hearers, 
that  they  considered  it  only  the  thrust  of  a  ruthless  agitator, 
or  as  the  feverish  dream  of  a  madman,  when  he  declared  that 
the  "fell  spirit  of  abolitionism" could  not  be  satisfied  even 
with  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves;  but  that  their  emanci- 
pation would  be  followed  by  their  political  and  social  equality, 
and  this,  in  turn,  by  a  complete  revolution  in  the  present  re- 
lations of  the  two  races  to  one  another.* 

1 "  Be  assured  that  emancipation  itself  would  not  satisfy  these  fanatics — 
that  gained,  the  next  step  would  be  to  raise  the  negroes  to  a  social  and  po- 
litical equality  with  the  whites;  and  that  being  eflfected,  we  would  soon 
find  the  present  condition  of  the  two  races  reversed.  They  and  their  north- 
em  allies  would  be  the  masters  and  we  the  slaves."    Works,  II,  p.  633. 


272  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Calhoun  himself,  least  of  all,  considered  it  possible  that  it 
could  ever  como  to  this.  His  Cassandra  warnings  were  in- 
troduced always  hy  a  two-fold  If.  If  the  federal  powers  did 
not  acquit  themselves  of  their  duty,  and  if  the  south  did  not 
know  how  to  insist  on  its  rights,  these  monstrous  events 
would  come  to  pass.  Based  only  on  these  two  assumptions, 
his  thought  kept  pace  with  the  state  of  affairs.  He  had 
not  made  shipwreck  of  his  faith  in  the  constitution;  in  his 
opinion  everything  depended  on  its  being  lived  up  to  con- 
scientiously. Hence,  for  the  present,  the  all-important  matter 
with  him  was  to  determine  accurately  what  the  positive  law 
was,  and  to  enforce  it  absolutely.  It  was  not,  therefore,  sur- 
prising to  see  him  again  ride  the  old  hobby  of  doctrinarian- 
ism,  and  hunt  after  constitutional  theories  with  as  fiery  a 
zeal  as  ever. 

On  the  27th  of  December,  one  week  after  the  stormy  pro- 
ceedings in  the  house  of  representatives  just  described,  Cal- 
houn introduced  six  resolutions  into  the  senate,  the  adoption 
or  rejection  of  which  was  to  be  the  "  test  question  "  by  which 
the  south  might  recognize  how  honest  was  the  assurance 
given  by  all  the  senators,  that  they  condemned  the  fanatical 
doctrines  of  the  abolitionists.  The  proud  planter  called  it 
to  account,  and  the  senate  of  the  United  States  spent  two 
weeks  answering  his  interrogatories  and  putting  the  desired 
confession  of  faith  in  relation  to  slavery  on  paper. 

"  The  only  remedy  is  the  state-rights  doctrines" —  such  was 
the  short  and  significant  principle,  the  acknowlodgment  of 
which,  on  all  sides,  the  resolution  wished  to  secure.^  Hence, 
the  series  was  very  logically  opened  with  the  statement  how, 
according  to  this  theory,  the  Union  came  into  existence 
under  the  federal  constitution.'^      From  the  alleged  con- 

'Works,  III,  p.  155. 

'The  expressions  are  selected  with  care,  after  the  wording  of  the  reso- 
lution.   It  is  said  that  every  state  "  entered  into  the  Union."    This  reso- 


TUE   RESOLUTIONS.  273 

federate  nature' of  the  Union  was  deduced  the  second  reso- 
lution, that  the  intermeddling  of  states  or  of  a  "  combination 
of  their  citizens  in  the  internal  affairs  of  another  state  —  on 
any  ground  or  under  any  pretext  whatever,  political,  moral 
or  religious  —  with  a  view  to  their  alteration  or  subversion," 
is  not  warranted  by  the  constitution.  The  resolution,  with 
a  few  immaterial  alterations,  was  adopted,  by  a  vote  of 
thirty-one  against  nine.*  Allen,  of  Ohio,  expressed  a  desire 
that  the  word  ^'religious"  should  be  stricken  out.  Cal- 
houn refused  to  accede  to  it,  because  "the  whole  spirit 
of  the  resolution  hinged  on  that  word."  ^  Morris,  Allen's 
colleague,  did  notj  however,  allow  himself  to  be  deterred 
thereby  from  moving  that  the  words  "  moral  and  religious  " 
should  be  stricken  out,  but  out  of  forty-five  votes  only 
fourteen  were  in  favor  of  his  motion.  Significant  as 
this  was,  it  was  of  no  real  importance.  Whether  the 
words  remained  or  were  stricken  out,  the  resolution  was, 
and  remained,  a  source  of  constitutional  law,  even  in  the 
hands  of  the  most  skillful  jurist.  Webster  pointed  out 
how  difficult  it  would  be  to  mention  the  domestic  institu- 
tions which  really  lay  outside  of  the  sphere  of  action  and 
power  of  the  Federal  government,  and  demonstrated  that 
slavery  certainly  was  not  one  of  them.  And  even  if  this 
difficulty  could  be  overcome,  who  was  there  able  to  give 
a  definition,  judicially  •  or  even  politically  serviceable,  of 
"  intermeddling? "  What  was  the  meaning  of  "  with  a 
view  to  their  alteration? "  What  was  the  meaning  of  "not 
warranted  by  the  constitution?"     If  all  this  was  to  have  so 

lution  was  adopted,  with  two  completely  unimportant  verbal  alterations, 
by  a  vote  of  31  against  13.  (Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  571.)  Hence,  by  a 
majority  of  more  than  two-thirds,  the  senate  assumed  that  the  Union  had 
ceased  to  exist  before  the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  When  and  by  what 
means,  then,  did  the  articles  of  confederation  go  out  of  force? 

>  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  572. 

•  Calhoun's  Works,  III,  p.  148. 
18 


274  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

precise  a  meaning  that  the  doctrines  of  rights  should  and 
conld  he  fixed  in  laws,  and  their  observance  secured  by  legal 
compulsory  measures  —  and  it  was,  obviously,  only  on  this 
supposition  that  they  could  serve  the  purpose  intended  — 
everything  which  had  relation  to  the  domestic  institutions  of 
other  states  would  become  a  punishable  violation  of  the  con- 
stitution. The  existence  of  slavery  had  to  vanish  from  the 
consciousness  of  the  free  states,  for,  until  this  happened, 
their  thought  would  have  to  be  occupied  with  it,  the 
thought  to  manifest  itself,  and  every  manifestation  of  the 
thought  had,  in  and  of  itself,  a  tendency  to  operate  an  "  al- 
teration "  of  the  existing  state  of  things. 

The  next  resolution  which  passed  from  negation  to  affirma- 
tion was  as  pointedly  framed  as  could  well  be  wished.^  It 
declared  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Federal  government  to  use 
the  powers  granted  it  in  such  a  manner  as  "  to  give  .  .  . 
increased  stability  and  security  to  the  domestic  institutions 
of  the  states  that  compose  the  Union."  The  senate  did  not 
permit  itself  to  be  pushed  thus  far  yet.  It  reduced  this  res- 
olution to  the  same  level  as  the  preceding  one.  It  was  again 
not  said  what  the  federal  powers  had  to  do,  but  only  what 
they  should  not  do,  or  allow  to  be  done;  their  sacred  duty 
was  not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  used  to  weaken  the  insti- 
tutions over  which  the  states  had  reserved  control. 

'It  begins  with  the  words:  " Resolved,  that  this  government  was  insti- 
tuted by  the  several  states  of  this  Union."  Bayard,  of  Delaware,  moved 
to  substitute  for  the  "  several  states,"  "  the  people  of  the  United  States." 
(Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  593.)  Calhoun  opposed  the  change  because,  thus 
framed,  the  resolution  would  be  ambiguous.  Bayard's  amendment  was 
rejected  by  a  vote  of  thirty-four  against  eight.  The  senate  devoted  two 
whole  weeks  to  the  bootless  task  of  giving  expression  to  its  views  on  cer- 
tain constitutional  questions,  and  by  a  majority  of  more  than  four  to  one, 
excluded  the  first  word  of  the  constitution  as  ambiguous.  The  persons  who 
are  "  more  royal  than  the  king  "  are  proverbial  the  world  over.  The  his- 
tory of  the  United  States  has  presented  an  incomparably  greater  anomaly 
in  the  state-righters  and  "  strict-constructionists, "  who  were  so  frequently 
more  faithful  to  the  constitution  than  the  constitution  itself. 


THE   EESOLUTIONS.  275 

Smith,  of  Indiana,  liad  moved,  as  an  addition,  an  express  rec- 
ognition of  the  rights  of  man  enumerated  in  the  first  lines  of 
theDeclaration  of  Independence,  the  right  of  the  freedom  of 
the  press,  and  the  right  of  petition.'  Allen  changed  this  prop- 
osition into  the  declaration  that  the  resolutions  in  question  did 
not  intend  to  recognize  "the  right  of  congress  to  impair,  in  any 
manner,  the  freedom  of  speech  or  of  the  press,  or  the  right  of 
petition,  as  secured  by  the  constitution  to  the  citizens  of  the 
several  states,  within  their  states  respectively."  ^  This  amend- 
ment was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  thirty-two  against  fourteen,  a 
falsification  of  the  constitution  which  left  all  the  gag-resolu- 
tions of  the  house  far  behind  it.  The  constitution  curtly 
and  concisely  prohibited  congress  by  law  to  abridge  the 
rights  named.  There  is  not  a  trace  to  be  found  iu  it  of  the 
many  lies  with  which  the  resolutioYi  sought  to  blind  the  eyes 
of  freedom.  But  even  if  the  rights  of  freedom  of  speech,  of 
the  press  and  of  petition  had  belonged  to  the  individuals 
constituting  the  people  only  as  citizens  of  the  several  states, 
and  not  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and,  therefore, 
only  "  within  their  states  respectively,"  the  federal  powers 
would  have  had  no  means  to  prevent  the  violations  of  the  con- 
stitution mentioned  in  the  second  resolution.  Hence,  either 
the  allegations  which  it  contained  were  incorrect,  or  the  con- 
stitution had  not  granted  the  federal  powers  the  authority 
necessary  to  the  performance  of  their  duties,  or  the  constitu- 
tion itself  could  not  be  carried  out.  The  second  of  these 
three  possible  assumptions  was  excluded  by  article  I,  section 
8,  par.  18  of  the  constitution,  and  in  respect  to  the  practical 
end  which  Calhoun  pursued,  it  was  a  matter  of  indifference 
which  of  the  other  two  was  decided  on.  From  the  rightness 
of  the  resolution  followed,  as  a  direct  consequence,  the  im- 
possibility of  carrying  out  the  constitution,  because  it  is  folly 
to  prohibit  the  operation  of  the  "  political,  moral  and  religi- 

« Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIH,  p.  582.  •  Ibid.,  p.  583. 


276  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  op  texas. 

ous  convictions  "  of  tlie  people  on  anything  whatever  relating 
to  their  poKtical  life. 

The  fourth  resolution  declared  slavery  to  be  "  an  important 
part  of  their  domestic  institutions,"  and  applied  to  it  tlie 
doctrines  previously  laid  down  in  general,  without  any  ex- 
press mention  of  them.  Every  "  attack  "  on  slavery  was  now 
called  "  a  manifest  breach  of  faith,  and  a  violation  of  the 
most  solemn  obligations."  The  senate  did  not  agree,  in  ac- 
cordance with  Calhoun's  motion,  to  designate  these  obliga- 
tions "  moral  and  religious." 

The  next  resolution  read:  "  Kesolved,  That  the  intermed- 
dling of  any  state  or  states,  or  their  citizens,  to  abolish  slavery 
in  this  district,  or  in  any  of  the  territories,  on  the  ground  or 
under  the  pretext  that  it  is  immoral  or  sinful,  or  the  passage 
of  any  act  or  measure  of  congress  with  that  view,  would  be 
a  direct  and  dangerous  attack  on  the  institutions  of  the  slave- 
holding  states."  Instead  of  this,  the  following  substitute 
was  adopted  on  Clay's  motion:  "Resolved,  That  the  inter- 
ference by  the  citizens  of  any  of  the  states,  with  the  view  to 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  this  District,  is  endangering  the 
rights  and  security  of  the  people  of  the  District,  and  that  any 
act  or  measure  of  cr»ngress  designed  to  abolish  slavery  in  this 
District,  would  be  a  violation  of  the  faith  implied  in  the  ces- 
sions by  the  states  of  Virginia  and  Maryland,  a  just  cause  of 
alarm  to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding  states,  and  have  a 
direct  and  inevitable  tendency  to  disturb  and  endanger  the 
Union." 

As,  according  to  the  preceding  resolutions,  every  attack 
on  slavery  was  a  violation  of  the  constitution,  so  evidently 
were  all  the  acts  enumerated  in  Calhoun's  fifth  resolution; 
since  they  were  denounced  as  "a  direct  and  dangerous  attack 
on  the  institutions  of  all  the  slaveholding  states."  Calhoun 
overlooked  this  consequence.  He  declared,  in  the  course  of 
debate,  that  he  considered  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 


6LAVEET   IN   THE   DISTKICT.  277 

District  of  Columbia  to  be,  indeed,  unconstitutional,  but 
that,  for  reasons  of  expediency,  he  preferred  not  to  rely 
thereon  in  this  case.' 

The  claim  that  the  power  of  congress  over  the  District  did 
not  extend  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  was  not  entirely  new. 
As  early  as  January,  1836,  Leigh,  of  Virginia,  had  asserted 
this  principle  in  the  senate,  and  endeavored  to  prove  it.^  He 
went  so  far  as  to  make  the  singular  claim  that  the  District 
was  not  ceded  to  the  United  States  but  to  congress,'  and 
from  this  he  inferred  that  the  cession  was  made  by  the  legis- 
latures of  Virginia  and  Maryland;  and  that  the  authority  of 
congress  could  not  exceed  the  rights  which  had  before  be- 
longed to  these  two  legislatures.  The  premise  was  false,  and 
even  if  it  were  right,  the  inference  drawn  from  it  could  not 
but  be  rejected  because  it  led  to  an  erroneous  consequence. 
The  "  ten  square  miles  "  were  ceded  by  the  states  of  Virginia 
and  Maryland,  and  not  by  their  legislatures;  for  the  former 
and  not  the  latter  were  the  owners,  and  it  was  not  the  rights 
of  the  legislatures  acting  in  the  name  of  the  states  that  were 
ceded,  but  the  rights  of  the  owners.  But  even  independently 
of  this,  it  would  have  been  senseless  to  measure  the  authority 
of  congress  by  the  powers  once  possessed  by  the  two  legisla- 
tures, since  as  these  were  not  equal  to  one  another  the  former 

'  Works,  III,  p.  168.  The  appeal  to  the  eighth  amendment  is  evidently 
a  mistake,  for  that  amendment  reads:  "  Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  re- 
quired, nor  excessive  fines  imposed,  nor  cruel  and  unusual  punishments 
inflicted." 

» Deb.  oCCongr.,  XII,  pp.  714,  715,  I  do  not  find  any  older  case  men- 
tioned in  my  notes,  but  I  cannot  say  definitely  that  thiB  was  really  the 
first.  In  May  of  the  same  year.  Wise  and  Robertson,  of  Virginia,  and 
Thompson  and  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  confessed  to  the  same  view  in 
the  house  of  representatives  (Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  24,  25). 

»  This  is  indeed  in  harmony  with  the  wording  of  the  cession-document, 
but  neither  with  the  facts  nor  the  constitution.  It  seems  to  me  that  it 
would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  prove  that  the  United  States  and  not  congress 
are  the  proprietors  of  the  District  of  Columbia. 


278  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

also  would  have  been  different  in  the  two  original  parts  of  the 
District,  And  even  if  this  had  been  overlooked,  and  Leisrh's 
fui'ther  claim  had  been  granted,  that  the  legislature  of  Yir- 
ginia  did  not  have  the  right  to  emancipate  the  slaves  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  several  owners/  there  would  have  been 
no  power  whatever  which  could  have  abolished  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  unless  every  si7igle  slaveholder  in 
it  acceded  to  it.  And  thus  it  might  have  happened  that, 
after  slavery  had  ceased  to  exist  in  the  entire  Union,  a  few 
slaveholders  might  have  burthened  the  seat  of  the  national 
legislature  with  this  disgrace  for  an  unlimited  time. 

But  there  is  no  need  for  all  this  argumentation.  The  ex- 
tent of  the  authority  of  congress  in  this,  as  in  all  other 
questions,  was  determined  by  the  constitution.  Whatever 
the  ceding  states  and  congress  might  have  stipulated  with 
one  another,  had  no  validity  except  to  the  extent  that  it 
was  not  in  conflict  with  the  constitution.^  "What  was  true  of 
every  sentence  of  the  constitution  was  true  of  this  clause  also: 
"  This  constitution  .  .  .  shall  be  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land,  and  the  judges  of  every  state  shall  be  bound  thereby, 
anything  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  state  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding."  ^  In  accordance  with  this,  the  records 
of  the  session  declared,  and  entirely  correctly,  that  the  ces- 
sion was  made  as  the  provisions  of  the  constitutional  clause 

'  '•  I  can  venture  to  say  that  the  great  body  of  the  jurists  of  Virginia,  aa 
well  as  of  the  people,  have  always  denied,  and  do  yet  deny,  the  constitu- 
tional power  of  the  ordinary  legislature  to  abolish  the  rights  of  slave  prop- 
erty without  the  consent  c.f  the  individual  owners." 

*  Hence,  in  my  opinion,  the  following  assertion  made  by  Madison  in  the 
Virginia  ratification  convention  is  entirely  wrong :  "Let  me  remark  .  .  . 
that  there  must  be  a  cession,  by  particular  states,  of  the  District  to  congress, 
and  that  the  states  may  settle  the  terms  of  the  cession.  The  states  may 
make  what  stipulation  they  please  in  it."  Elliot,  Deb.  Ill,  p.  433.  The 
constitution  says  not  only  that  congress  shall  have  "exclusive  legislation  " 
in  the  District,  but  adds,  "in  all  cases  whatsoever." 

»  Art.  VI,  sec.  2. 


SLAVERY   IN   THE   DISTMOT.  279 

required.^  But  the  wording  of  the  clause  so  frequently 
cited  called,  with  all  the  clearness  of  which  the  English 
language  is  at  all  capable,  for  an  unlimited  power;  that  is, 
of  course,  so  far  only  as  other  provisions  of  the  constitution 
did  not  restrict  it.  Thus,  too,  had  the  states-righters  under- 
stood it  when  there  was  question  of  the  adoption  or  rejection 
of  the  constitution;^  and  the  history  of  congress  afforded,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  whole  series  of  resolutions  and  measures, 
in  which  the  representatives  of  the  south,  by  a  majority 
frequently  bordering  on  unanimity,  had  indirectly  acknowl- 
edged that  congress  had  a  right  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District.^ 

How  great  was  the  majority  which  still  adhered  to  the 
old  view  is  best  shown  by  Calhoun's  confession,  that  he  did 
not,  for  reasons  of  expediency,  wish  to  rely  on  the  con- 
stitution. With  all  his  doctrinarianism,  he  was  practical 
enough  to  be  satisfied  under  the  circumstances,  provided  a 
large  majority,  with  the  president,  should  give  the  assurance 
to  the  south  that  slavery  in  the  district  should  be  made  as 

'The  tract  of  land  "is  forever  ceded  and  relinquished  to  congress  and 
to  the  government  of  the  United  States,  in  full  and  absolute  right  and 
exclusive  juiisdiction,  as  well  of  soil  as  of  persons  residing  or  to  reside 
therein,  pursuant  to  the  tenor  and  effect  of  the  eighth  section  of  the  first 
article  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States."  Webst.'s  Works,  17, 
p.  372;  Niles,  LXI,  p.  138. 

*G.  Mason  said  in  the  Virginia  ratification  convention:  "  Implication 
.  .  .  was  capable  of  an  extension,  and  would  probably  be  extended  to 
augment  the  congressional  powers.  But  here  there  was  no  need  of  impli- 
cation. This  clause  gave  them  an  unlimited  authority,  in  every  possible 
case,  within  that  district."  Elliot,  Deb.  Ill,  p.  431.  Still  more  pointedly 
did  P.  Henry  express  himself:  "Is  there  any  act,  however  atiocious, 
which  they  can  not  do  by  virtue  of  this  clause?  .  .  .  What  could  the 
most  extravagant  and  boundless  imagination  ask,  but  power  to  do  every- 
thing?"   Ibid.,  pp.  483,  437. 

•  Any  one  who  desires  to  see  the  list  in  a  more  complete  form  may  con- 
sult Slade's  speech  of  the  18th  and  20th  of  January,  1840.  Niles,  LXI. 
pp.  135,  136. 


280  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

secure  by  other  walls  and  ramparts  as  it  could  have  been  by 
the  most  unambiguous  provision  of  the  constitution.  The 
faith  of  Clay's  substitute,  tacitly  pledged,  was  a  protection 
of  this  kind,  and  it  was  voted  to  the  south  by  the  senate  by 
a  vote  of  thirty-six  against  nine.^ 

This  claim  of  an  obligation  of  honor  is  distinguished  fi-om 
the  direct  denial  of  constitutional  power,  as  a  modern  sneak- 
thief  from  a  medieval  robber-knight.  The  proof  of  the  un- 
tenableness  of  the  claim,  it  was  as  easy  to  produce  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other.  Clay's  principle  could  have  a  basis 
in  facts  only  in  case  that,  essentially,  slavery  had  been 
thought  of  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  fifty  years  before,  and 
that  an  almost  equal  interest  had  been  taken  in  it  then 
as  now.  But  this  was  demonstrably  not  the  case.  Nearly 
the  whole  south,  and  most  of  all  Virginia,  had,  together  with 
the  north,  been  cradled  in  the  illusion  that  slavery,  by  the 
early  prohibition  of  slave-importation,  would  gradually  die 
out  of  itself;  and  almost  the  entire  south  was,  by  the  pres- 
sure of  revolutionary  memories,  still  sunk  in  the  self-decep- 
tion, that  it  longingly  wished  to  be  freed  from  this  "  curse." 
The  possibility  that  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District 
might  one  day  become  one  of  the  greatest  questions  of  na- 
tional politics  was  as  little  kept  in  view  at  that  time  in  the 
north,  as  it  was  thought  in  Virginia  and  Maryland,  that  the 
unrestricted  power  of  congress  over  the  District  would 
threaten  slavery  with  mortal  danger.  That  provision  awak- 
ened the  most  exaggerated  fears,  but  this  possibility  was 
never  thought  of.  The  sentiment  of  the  time,  both  at 
the  north  and  the  south,  found  its  most  pointed  expression 
in  the  undebated  resolutions  to  leave  the  laws  of  the  ced- 
ing states  in  force  in  the  District.  There  were  very  few 
points  in  the  slavery  question  on  which  thought  had  as  yet 
begun  to  be  expended.     For  the  most  part  by  far,  people 

1  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  605. 


SLAVEEY   IN   THE   DISTEIOT.  281 

helped  themselves  with  the  feelings  which  lay  pretty  near 
the  surface.  Hot  as  was  the  contest  over  the  question  where 
the  seat  of  government  should  be  situated,  no  one  suspected 
that  the  decision  would  have  bo  immense  a  significance  for 
the  slavery  question  as  it  in  fact  had. 

In  the  house  of  representatives,  Slade's  mouth  was  closed 
by  the  inquiry:  what  mattered  it  what  views  Yirgiuia  had 
fifty  years  before  on  slavery?  Clay  could  not  make  use  of 
this  telling  argument  for  his  doctrine  of  the  pledged  honor 
of  congress,  but  his  historical  proof,  nevertheless,  supposed 
complete  abstraction  to  be  made  of  the  historical  facts.  But 
even  if  people  wished  to  let  him  play  the  juggler  with  this 
rock,  he  suffered  shipwreck  on  the  other,  which  Leigh  had 
run  foul  of.  But  the  sole  object  of  his  substitute  was  to  ob- 
tain an  actual  decision  of  the  question  of  right  without  tak- 
ing any  notice  of  the  right  whatever. 

Congress  was  not  obliged  to  do  really  all  that  it  might  do. 
So  long  as  it  considered  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict inexpedient,  it  was  entirely  justified  by  the  constitu- 
tional law  of  the  country  to  permit  it  to  continue.  But  the 
constitution  had  left  it  to  each  successive  congress  to  decide 
what  measures  were  expedient  for  the  District,  and  had  not 
given  to  any  one  congress  the  right  to  make  a  decision  bind- 
ing on  all  subsequent  congresses.  If  one  congress  assumed 
such  a  right  to  itself,  the  subsequent  congresses  were  not 
only  neither  legally  nor  morally  bound  by  its  decision,  but 
it  was  their  plain  constitutional  duty  to  reject  it  the  mo- 
ment they  considered  its  rejection  required  by  the  intei^ests 
of  the  District  or  of  the  Union.  Not  to  admit  this,  is  to 
ascribe  to  each  congress  the  power  to  alter  the  provision  of 
tlie  constitution  in  relation  to  the  authority  of  congress  over 
the  District  according  to  its  good  will  and  pleasure.  And  if 
congress  could  not  do  this  by  a  law,  it  is  obvious  that  it 
could  still  less  do  it  by  an  obligation  tacitly  entered  into. 


282  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

This  theory  of  the  pledged  honor  of  congress  which  asserted 
itself  until,  and  during  a  long  part  of,  the  civil  war,  is  the 
strongest  illustration  given  by  the  slavocracy  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  Union  as  an  unarbitrary  law -respecting  state 
(Rechtsstaat)^  with  written  fundamental  rights. 

Yet  Clay  and  the  majority  of  the  senate  cannot  be  let  go 
with  this.  With  their  cheap  and  cowardly  cunning,  they 
were  shamefully  disgraced  in  a  third  way. 

The  only  argument  which  was  adduced  or  could  be  ad- 
duced for  the  alleged  pledging  of  the  honor  of  congress,  was 
the  great  interest  which  Virginia  and  Maryland  had  in  the 
continued  existence  of  slavery  in  the  District.  If  the  argu- 
ment was  a  valid  one,  the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be, 
under  all  circumstances,  a  breach  of  faith  so  long  as  that 
interest  continued.  And  the  consent  and  even  the  unani- 
mous wish  of  the  slave-owners  of  the  District  could  alter 
nothing  of  this.  Congress  —  if  it  were  to  conceive  and  fulfil 
the  moral  obligations  entered  into,  not  according  to  their 
paraphrased  letter,  but  to  their  spirit  —  might  find  itself  in 
a  situation,  like  so  many  slave  states,  to  put  the  greatest  legal 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  voluntary  emancipation  of  slaves 
by  their  masters.  It  would  have  had  to  go  much  farther 
than  this.  If  it  were  self-evident  that  it  had  entered  into 
an  obligation  to  let  the  interests  of  the  former  owners  of  the 
District  be  the  controlling  consideration  in  its  legislative 
action  in  relation  to  slavery  in  the  District,  it  was  just  as  self- 
evident  that  it  had  undertaken  the  same  obligation  in  regard 
to  all  other  interests  which  seemed  important  enough  to  them 
to  wish  the  recognition  of  such  an  obligation.  The  improb- 
ability that  thej'^  would  ever  extend  the  claim  farther  did  not 
change  the  principle.  This  principle  put  the  interests  of 
the  ceding  states,  as  understood  by  the  states  themselves,  in 
the  place  of  the  unlimited  power  of  congress  provided  by 
the  constitution. 


CLAY  AGAINST   CALHOUN.  •  283 

Clay  had  lodged  against  Calhoun  the  accusation  that  his 
resolutions  liad  heightened  the  excitement  in  the  north,  and 
intensified  its  bitterness.^  He  was  himself  met  with  the 
great  reproach  that,  by  his  compromise  opiates,  he  sought 
to  stupefy  the  tliought  and  especially  the  moral  feeling  of 
the  people.  These  efforts  of  his  were  only  too  successful, 
but  where  they  were  fruitless  they  operated  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  thorn  in  the  scourge  which  the  radicals  of  the  south 
swung.  Clay's  substitute  played  a  very  material  part  in 
makino'  the  resolutions  of  the  senate^  a  more  dangerous 
attempt  against  the  constitution  and  against  freedom  than 
the  gag-resolutions  of  the  house.  ■  That  they  were  "abstrac- 
tions" which  did  not  culminate  directly  in  any  practical 
measure,  made  them  only  all  the  more  dangerous.  Whoever 
avoided  the  battle  —  and  the  immense  majority  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  northern  states  belonged  to  this  class  —  might 
pass  over  them  to  the  order  of  the  day  as  soon  as  the  debate 
in  the  senate  was  ended,  for  their  practical  consequences  lay 
in  an  indefinite  future.  But  in  regard  to  the  house  of  rep- 
resentatives, there  was  question  not  of  future  possibilities. 
There  the  north  was  made  to  feel,  day  after  day,  what  the  new 
doctrine  of  the  moral  obligations  towards  slavery  meant  to  it. 
Here  it  had  to  act  without  delay,  that  the  usurpation  might 
not  gradually  gain  more  and  more  the  appearance  of  a  pre- 
scriptive right;  and  as  it  had  to  act,  the  "abstractions"  of 
the  senate  sounded  like  a  shrill  alarm  in  its  ears.  The  gen- 
tlemen who  understood  so  well  to  read  unwritten  words,  had 
to  see  that  all  the  answers  to  its  gag-resolutions  which  came 
to  the  house  bore  the  address  of  the  senate  also.     And  the 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XITI,  p.  596. 

•  The  Calhoun  resolutions  are  to  be  found  in  full  in  his  works  (III,  pp. 
140,  141),  and  besides  in  the  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  567,  568;  the  whole 
series  of  resolutions  introduced  by  Clay,  in  the  same  place,  p.  598;  and  the 
resolutions  as  they  were  adopted  by  the  senate,  at  p.  578. 


284   JAOKSOn's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

answers  were  numerous  and  plain  enough  to  be  intelligible 
to  everyone,  but  at  first  not  so  numerous  and  plain  as  not 
to  make  the  obdurate  still  more  obdurate. 

In  the  session  of  1835-36,  one  hundred  and  seventy-six 
petitions,  with  thirty-four  thousand  signatures,  relating  to 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  were  received.^  The 
Pinckney  gag  caused  the  number  of  signatures  in  the  next 
session  to  increase  to  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand,  and 
Pattou's  resolution,  1837-38,  swelled  them  to  three  hundred 
thousand.^  And  the  matter  did  not  end  with  these  and  similar 
demonstrations  of  private  persons.  Even  at  the  beginning  of 
1836,  the  representatives  of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavory 
society  experienced  a  really  scandalous  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  a  committee  of  the  state  legislature,  and  especially  of  its 
chairman,  George  Lunt.^  A  year  later,  both  houses  of  the 
legislature  voted  resolutions,  by  a  large  majority,  in  which 
it  was  declared  that  the  gag-resolutions  were  violations  of 
the  constitution,  and  the  right  claimed  for  congress  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  legislature  of 
Vermont  passed  similar  resolutions.  In  January,  1838,  the 
hall  of  the  house  of  representatives  was  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  society  for  its  annual 
meeting.  In  May,  the  legislature  of  Connecticut  followed 
the  example  of  the  legislatures  of  her  two  sister  states,  and 
repealed  the  "  black  law  "  which  was  passed  in  1 833,  for  the 
suppression  of  Miss  Prudence  Crandall's  school. 

The  south  did  not  underestimate  these  manifestations  of 

'  Deb.  of  CongT.,  XIII,  p.  26. 

*Jay,  Misc.  Writ.,  p.  349. 

»  On  these  proceedings,  and  the  attitude  of  the  governor,  Edward  Everett, 
to  the  slavery  question,  see  Wilson,  Rise  and  Fall,  etc.,  I,  pp.  328-338; 
Lunt's  own  work,  The  Origin  of  the  Late  War,  100, 101, 107-110,  471^80; 
S.  J.  May,  Some  Recollections  of  our  Anti-Slavery  C!onflict,  pp.  187-202; 
W.  Goodell,  A  full  Statement  of  the  Reasons  which  were  in  Part  offered 
to  the  Committee,  etc. 


NEW   GAG-EESOLUTIONS.  285 

a  new  spirit,  bnt,  instead  of  restraining  itself,  it  rushed  on- 
ward on  the  path  it  had  hitherto  followed,  with  redoubled 
violence.  A  week  after  the  coming  together  again  of  con- 
gress, and  before  any  exciting  debate  on  the  slavery  question 
had  taken  place,  new  gag-resolutions  were  moved  in  the 
house  of  representatives,  and  adopted  by  a  very  respectable 
majority^  (11th  and  12th  of  December,  1838).  This  gag 
earned  a  peculiarly  sad  celebrity,  because  a  northern  repre- 
sentative tamed  Judas.  To  this  one  deed,  Atherton,  of  New 
Hampshire,  owes  it  that  his  name  shall  always  assert  for 
itself  a  place  in  the  history  of  the  United  States. 

Atherton  had  a  claim  on  the  recognition  of  the  south,  be- 
cause he  measured  out  its  "  right "  to  it  neither  anxiously 
nor  pettily.  He  not  only  denied  congress  the  right  to  make 
any  "  attempt "  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
or  "in  the  territories,"'  or  "  to  discriminate  between  the  in- 
stitutions of  one  portion  of  the  states  and  another,  with  a  view 
of  abolishing  the  one  and  promoting  the  other,"  but  he  also 
denied  its  power  to  prevent  "  the  removal  of  slaves  from  one 
state  to  another." '    And  yet  he.did  not  satisfy  all.     Not  only 

'  The  constitutional  doctrines  with  which  Atherton  prefaces  the  real  gag- 
j-esolution,  have  a  peculiar  coloring  which  makes  it  seem  improbable  to 
me  that  Calhoun  —  as  was  surmised  at  the  time  —  was  the  real  originator 
of  the  resolutions.  They  impress  me  as  a  coarse  mixture  of  Calhoun's 
radicalism,  and  of  the  intricate  slyness  of  Clay,  which  covered  up  every 
definite,  plain  term  with  the  "fig-leaves  "  of  circumlocution,  and  modify- 
ing clauses.  A  constitutional  criticism  could  not  leave  even  a  single  sen- 
tence unquestioned.  But  it  does  not  seem  to  me  proper  to  devote  to  tiiem 
the  space  necessary  to  refute  them,  although  they  in  part  go  beyond  aJl 
their  predecessors.  The  general  character  of  this  sophistry  appears  from 
the  criticism  on  Calhoun's  speeches  and  resolutions,  and  this,  from  an  his- 
torical standpoint,  should  suffice.  The  resolutions  are  in  the  Deb.  of 
Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  702,  703. 

'  In  the  resolutions  of  the  senate  of  the  12th  of  January,  1838,  "  in  which 
slavery  exists  "  is  added,  and  the  attempt  is  called  only  a  "  violation  of 
good  faith." 

*  It  is  to  be  remarked  that  it  does  not  say  from  slave  state  to  slave  state. 


286  Jackson's  ADMINISTRATION — annexation  of  texas. 

did  the  grumbling  continue,  but  be  had  to  listen  to  the  most 
violent  reproaches.  Wise,  of  Yirginia,  refused  to  vote  on 
the  last  resolution,  because  the  words  "with  the  views  afore- 
said "  had  "  sold  the  south."  ^  The  slavocracy  could  not  be 
compared  to  Cerberus:  the  more  was  cast  to  it,  the  wider 
did  it  open  its  insatiable  throat. 

Atherton,  however,  received  undivided  and  lively  recogni- 
tion from  his  party  associates.  His  resolutions  were  claimed, 
in  the  north  especially,  as  a  great  victory,  and  a  still  greater 
merit  of  the  democratic  party.  That  the  northern  democrats 
were  the  more  devoted  friends  and  servants  of  the  slavocracy, 
was  certainly  incontestable.  But  the  charges  made  against 
the  whigs,  on  this  occasion,  were  justified  only  to  a  very  small 
extent.  Wise,  about  this  time,  had  a  very  close  connection 
with  the  whigs,  and  yet  it  could  not  be  claimed  that  he  yielded 
to  any  democrat  in  his  zeal  for  the  "rights"  of  the  south. 
Besides,  the  democratic  speaker  of  the  twenty-fifth  congress 
(James  K.  Polk)  was  chosen  by  a  majority  of  only  thirteen, 
and  the  Atherton  gag  was  voted  by  a  majority  of  niaety- 
four  and  forty-eight  respectively.^  The  victory  was  not  too 
great,  and  the  merit  was  still  more  doubtful.  One  did  not 
need  to  be  peculiarly  sharp-sighted  to  see  the  flames  of  the 
slavery  question  continue  burning  "  in  the  halls  of  congress." 


'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  707.  The  clause  is  so  placed  that  it  has,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  legal  construction  which  obtain  in  the  United  States, 
reference,  not  to  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  and 
in  the  territories,  and  of  the  transfer  of  slaves  from  state  to  state,  but  only 
to  the  discrimination  between  the  institutions  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
Union. 

*  The  votes  were  divided  on  the  balloting  on  the  last  resolution.  Ono 
hundred  and  forty-six  against  fifty-two  declared  for  the  constitutional  doc- 
trines, and  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  against  seventy-eight  for  the  course 
to  be  observed  by  the  house  in  relation  to  all  propositions  and  papers  re- 
garding slavery.  The  number  seventy-three,  in  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,. 
p.  707,  is  a  misprint. 


GAGGING  OP  THE  HOUSE.  287 

Tlie  extingnislier,  therefore,  could  not  have  been  entirely 
air-tight.^  It  was  something  serious,  that  the  opportiinitj  to 
rejoice  ever  its  complete  stifling  was  so  frequently  afforded 
to  the  democrats  and  to  the  south.^ 

On  the  28th  of  January,  1840,  the  house  of  representa- 
tives of  the  twenty-sixth  congress  decreed  its  own  gagging. 
Tt  not  only  followed  the  example  of  its  predecessor,  but  out- 
did it  The  resolution  was  adopted  among  the  standing 
rales  of  the  house  (twenty-first  rule),  and  recognized  Calhoun's 
view  as  the  correct  one:  the  abolitionist  petitions  were  hence- 
forth not  to  be  received  at  all.^  The  mover,  William  Cost 
Johnson,  of  Maryland,  was  a  whig.  "Was  this  completer  vic- 
tory of  the  south  owing  to  the  fact  that  this  party  bethought 
itself,  and  desired  henceforth  to  walk  in  better  ways?*    No. 

'"By  one  of  the  most  skillful,  prompt  and  energetic  parliamentary 
movements  that  we  have  ever  witnessed,  the  democratic  party  in  the  house 
blighted  in  the  bud  every  hope  that  might  have  been  cherished  of  weak- 
ening the  daily  growing  strength  of  the  administration  at  the  south,  by 
the  agitation  of  this  [the  slavery]  question.  By  the  famous  'Atherton 
resolutions,'  not  only  was  this  long-vexed  question,  as  a  political  one, 
placed  at  last,  fuUy  and  distinctly,  on  its  true  ground  of  the  state-rights 
principle,  so  as  to  be  able  to  combine  the  free  support  of  all  the  democracy 
of  the  north,  of  which  many  had  before  had  but  an  imperfect  understanding 
of  it,  but,  moreover,  a  sudden  and  total  extinguisher  was  put  upon  the 
very  possibility  of  making  it  a  means  of  party  agitation  within  the  halls  of 
congress.  This  movement  set  the  matter  at  rest.  The  whigs  themselves 
evinced  their  consciousness  of  it,  by  the  desperate  efforts  which  they  made 
to  evade  or  counteract  it,  when  It  was  too  late."  The  "  Democratic  Re- 
view," April,  1839. 

*  Benton  says  of  the  Patton  resolutions:  "  Thus  was  stifled,  and  in  future 
prevented  in  the  house,  the  inflammatoty  debates  on  these  disturbing  peti- 
tions."   Thirty  Years'  View,  I,  p.  154. 

'  "  No  petition,  memorial,  resolution,  or  other  paper,  praying  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  or  any  state  or  territory,  or 
the  slave  trade  between  the  states  and  the  territories  of  the  United  States 
in  which  it  now  exists,  shall  be  received  by  this  house,  or  entertained  in 
any  way  whatever." 

*  On  the  25th  of  January,  Bynum,  of  North  Carolina,  had  delivered  a 


288   Ji  CKSOn's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

On  the  whole,  it  filled  the  south  with  satisfaction,  that  in 
December,  1838,  a  man  from  the  north  closed  the  damper 
which  was  to  keep  the  draft  from  the  furnace;  that  it  was 
now  done  by  a  southern  whig  was  ground  for  exasperation. 
Tlie  complete  victory  of  the  28th  of  January  looked  very 
much  like  an  ominous  defeat.  By  the  adoption  of  Patton's 
resolution,  the  debate  was  from  the  outset  cut  off  by  the 
previous  question.  The  passage  of  Atherton's  resolution  had 
cost  two  days'  time,  and  now  a  whole  month  intervened  be- 
tween the  first  motion  of  a  gag-resolution  and  its  adoption.^ 
And  during  the  whole  time  the  fire  of  debate  burned  in  a 
manner  which  must  have  awakened  very  peculiar  reflections 
on  the  efficiency  of  the  extinguisher  of  the  south.  In  a  speech 
which  lasted  two  days,  Slade  was  able  to  read  a  lecture  to 
the  south,  with  an  emphasis  compared  with  which  the  bitter 
truths  that,  a  little  less  than  two  years  before,  had  led  to  the 
"  secession  "  of  the  southern  representatives,  were  very  mild.' 

speech,  of  which  Adams  said:  "The  point  of  his  whole  speech  was  to 
prove  that  the  whig  party,  north  and  south,  was  identified  with  the  aboli- 
tionists." Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  203.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  writes 
on  the  11th  of  January,  1839:  "  It  is  clear  that  the  efiTorts  of  the  admin- 
istration are  directed  to  the  identifying  whigism  and  abolitionism,  and  the 
whig  party  has  not  sense  enough  to  keep  free  from  the  coils  of  the  black 
snake."  Clay's  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  438.  But  Clay  himself  writes,  on  the 
3d  of  November,  1838:  "  In  Ohio,  the  abohtionists  are  alleged  to  have 
gone  against  us,  almost  to  a  man.  .  .  .  My  own  position  touching 
slavery,  at  the  present  time,  is  singular  enough.  The  abolitionists  are  de- 
nouncing me  as  a  slaveholder,  and  slaveholders  as  an  abolitionist,  while 
they  both  unite  on  Mr.  Van  Buren.    Ibid.,  pp.  430,  431. 

•  On  the  30th  of  December,  1839,  Wise  endeavored  in  vain  to  obtain  a 
suspension  of  the  rules  to  introduce  a  motion  of  this  kind.  He  repeated 
the  attempt  next  day,  and  at  the  same  time  announced  "  he  would  make 
the  same  motion  every  day  throughout  the  session."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
X,  p.  180. 

*  Adams  writes  in  his  diary:  "  Slade  delivered  himself  of  the  burden 
that  has  been  four  years  swelling  in  his  bosom."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
X,  p.  198. 


POLITICAL   ACTION   OF  THE  ABOLITIONISTS.  289 

He  was  followed  by  Adams  with  a  speech  which  lasted  sev- 
eral hours,  and  which  Holmes,  of  South  Carolina,  character- 
ized as  "very  able,  very  powerful,  and  very  dangerous." 
One  motion  followed  quickly  after  another,  and  among  them 
there  were  some  by  representatives  of  the  south  which  dis- 
claimed all  attempts  at  gagging,  and  which  demanded  the 
reference  of  the  petitions  to  a  committee.  Patton's  and 
Atherton's  resolutions  had  received  a  majority  of  forty-eight 
votes;  Johnson's  was  barely  passed  by  a  majority  of  six  votes. 
Of  the  representatives  of  the  north,  sixty-two  had  voted  for 
Pinckney's  gag,  fifty-two  for  Patton's,  forty-nine  for  Ather- 
ton's, and  twenty-eight  for  Johnson's.  Truly  Calhoun  had, 
indeed,  reason  to  congratulate  himself  and  the  country  on 
"the  progress  of  truth  on  the  subject  of  abolition."^  But 
far  more  significant  than  all  these  signs  of  the  time  was  it 
that  not  only  the  defensive  became  more  powerful,  but  also 
that  a  new  principle  was  carried  into  the  offensive. 

Hitherto  the  programme  proposed  to  themselves  by  the 
abolitionists  in  1833,  Avhen  establishing  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  society,  had  not  been  carried  out,  so  far  as  it  contem- 
plated political  action.  The  latter  had  been  confined  thus 
far  to  the  "questioning"  of  the  candidates  which,  for  the 
most  part,  had  shown  itself  completely  worthless.  Either  no 
answers  whatever  were  given,  or  when  answers  were  given, 
they  were,  as  a  rule,  unsatisfactory;  or  else  the  candidates, 
after  the  election,  forgot  promises  they  had  made  before 
it.  In  the  meantime,  the  revolution  in  opinion  before 
mentioned  was  completed  in  the  case  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  abolitionists;  all  political  action  was  rejected  and  con- 
demned. With  tlie  minority,  however,  the  idea  to  which 
Garrison  was  the  first  to  give  expression  as  far  back  as  1834, 
to  organize  a  political  party  of  their  own,  had  shot  dee]ier 
roots.     It  found  favor  more  and  more,  especially  among  the 

'February  13, 1840.    Works,  III,  p.  439.  ^^,0  ^-^ - 


:^    ^ 


i^' 


290  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

abolitionists  of  New  York.  W.  Goodell,  G.  Smith,  Alvan 
Stewart  and  Mjron  Hollej  were  its  most  distinguished 
representatives.  The  state  convention  of  the  abolitionists 
of  New  York,  which  met  at  Arcade  in  January,  1840,  called  a 
national  convention  to  meet  at  Albany,  to  consult  and  deter- 
mine whether  a  political  party  of  their  own  should  be  es- 
tablished.^ The  executive  committee  of  the  American  Anti- 
Slavery  society  assumed  towards  the  summons  an  attitude  of 
cool,  retiring  passiveness,  and  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery 
society  issued  an  address  in  which  it  strongly  advised  against 
the  acceptance  of  the  invitation.'^  Besides  the  one  hundred  and 
four  delegates  from  New  York  there  appeared  only  seventeen 
others;  and  altogether  six  states  were  represented.  Spite  of 
this,  a  new  political  party  was  founded,  and  the  name  Liberty 
Party  adopted.  It  was  certain  enough  that  this  handful  of 
men  would  move  neither  slavery  nor  the  Union ;  but  whether 
the  principle  which  they  asserted  would  not  do  so  some  day, 

•  According  to  G.  Smith,  the  founding  of  such  a  paxty  was  ah^ady  defi- 
nitely resolved  upon  at  Arcade:  "  January  29, 1840,  it  was  solemnly  re- 
solved, after  a  two  days'  discussion  of  the  subject  in  a  large  convention 
held  in  Arcade,  Wyoming  county  (then  Genesee  county),  state  of  New 
York,  to  organize  a  new  political  party."  Speech  of  Gerrit  Smith,  Octo- 
ber 21,  1847  (in  Buffalo,  in  the  national  convention  of  the  Liberty  party), 
p.  3.  It  is  not,  however,  easy  to  reconcile  this  with  the  invitation  to  the 
national  convention  quoted  verbatim  in  Goodell,  Slavery  and  Anti-Slav- 
ery, p.  471, 

*  I  have  not  seen  the  address;  it  is,  however,  permissible  to  infer  its  tone 
and  the  character  of  its  reasoning  from  the  following  sentences  from  the 
10th  (1842)  yearly  report  of  that  same  society:  "  But,  whatever  may  be 
the  motives  which  actuate  those  who  are  in  favor  of  a  distinct  political  anti- 
slavery  organization,  whether  patriotic  or  selfish,  it  is  still  the  firm  con- 
viction of  the  board,  that  such  an  organization  is  unnecessary,  and  in  its 
tendency  detrimental  to  the  highest  welfare  of  the  anti-slavery  cause. 
.  .  .  To  use  the  language  of  the  American  Anti-Slavery  society  in  1837, 
*  we  deprecate  the  organization  of  any  abolition  political  party, '  because 
it  changes  the  moral  aspect  of  our  cause,  and  is  the  substitution  of  a  hu- 

^  r  f-;-  man  device  for  a  moral  instrumentality  to  extirpate  the  system  and  the 
I  •  'J./.!.;^^'^'^^  slavery  from  the  land."    p.  13. 


THE   ANSWER   TO   THE   EESOLUTIONS.  291 

was  another  question.  The  abolitionist  radicals  wanted,  like 
Moses,  to  strike  water  from  the  rock;  their  scorned  brothers 
went  to  work  with  hammer  and  drill  to  accomplish  the  same 
task.  There  was  no  longer  any  need  of  a  miracle.  Patience, 
energy  and  fidelity  to  principle,  in  conjunction  with  the  in- 
exorable logic  of  facts,  would  surely  do  the  work  sooner  or 
later. 

These  were  the  answers  which  came  from  all  sides  to  the 
declarations  and  resolutions  of  the  majority  of  congress,  that 
the  slavery  question  should  be  buried  in  thoughtless  and  un- 
feeling silence,  because,  both  legally  and  equitably,  slavery 
was  a  domestic  institution  of  the  states,  and  subject  to  their 
exclusive  control.  Every  day  the  conviction  became  more 
general,  that,  according  to  both  law  and  equity,  the  demand 
should  be  rejected;  every  day  afforded  new  and  more  con- 
vincing proofs  that  its  fulfillment  was  entirely  impossible; 
each  day  the  slavocracy  gave  the  lie  more  boldly  and  more 
completely  to  its  own  doctrines.  "  Let  us  alone  "  it  cried 
more  and  more  violently  and  more  and  more  threateningly; 
more  and  more  violently  and  immoderately  did  it  call  on  the 
national  powers  and  on  the  national  strength  to  protect  and 
to  promote  slavery.  From  the  constitutional  equality  of 
rights  of  slavery  and  freedom,  it  proved  that  not  only  its  in- 
terests, but  its  feeling,  should  be  the  compass  according  to 
which  the  national  politics  should  be  steered;  and  from  the 
same  constitutional  equality  of  rights  it  proved  that  the 
north  should  have  no  feeling,  to  say  nothing  of  interests,  in 
opposition  to  slavery.  The  more  it  reduced  the  rights  of 
the  nation  in  relation  to  slavery  to  zero,  the  more  did  it  raise 
its  duties  to  slavery  up  to  the  point  where  every  wish  of  the 
south  was  of  itself  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  the  corre- 
sponding national  duty.  But  the  north  was,  by  its  former 
concessions,  entangled  in  a  net  which  it  only  drew  more 
firmly  about  it,  by  every  attempt  to  tear  it. 


292  Jackson's  administration  —  annexationof  texa8. 

Many  claims  were  raised  and  many  concessions  made, 
without  there  being  on  either  side  any  idea  of  their  bearing, 
or  the  possibility  of  forming  any  snch  idea.  It  not  unfre- 
quently  happened  that  the  disastrous  consequences  appeared 
in  snch  an  amalgamation  with  questions  which  had  no  con- 
nection whatever  with  slavery,  that  the  national  honor  and 
national  interest  were  irrevocably  engaged  before  there  was 
the  least  suspicion  that  the  demon  of  slavery  had  a  hand  in 
the  game. 

"Private  cruelty  and  vengeance"  were  for  a  long  time 
universally  considered  the  causes  of  the  most  protracted, 
costly  and  bloody  Indian  war  which  the  United  States  had 
to  carry  on.^  In  reality,  its  germs  lay  in  the  treaty  with 
the  Creeks,  of  the  7th  of  August,  1790,  before  mentioned. 
The  real  Creeks  met  their  obligations  after  a  few  years;'  but 
the  Seminoles  of  Florida  did  not  surrender  the  slaves  who 
had  fled  to  them.  For  this  reason,  the  United  States  under- 
took, in  a  new  treaty  with  the  Creeks,  at  Indian  Spring,  of 
January  8,  1821,  the  liquidation  of  Georgia's  claims  for 
damages  for  "property  "  which  had  been  robbed  or  destroyed 
by  the  Creeks  before  the  30th  of  March,  1802,  provided  the 
aggregate  amount  did  not  exceed  $250,000.' 

•Niles,  LI,  p.  145. 

*  Giddin{?8,  Speeches,  p.  167. 

»Stat.  at  L.,  VII,  pp.  215,  216.  Giddings  (Sp.,  p.  4)  says:  "In  1821, 
by  treaty  at  Indian  Spring,  they  (the  Creeks)  surrendered  to  the  United 
States  a  large  tract  of  land,  for  which  we  stipulated  to  pay  them  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  Of  this  sum,  two  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  was  retained  as  a  trust  fund,  from  which  the  president  was  to 
pay  the  slaveholders  of  Georgfia  for  their  slaves,"  etc.  In  the  first  place, 
Georgia  by  no  means  demanded  compensation  only  for  fugitive  slaves;  and 
in  the  second  place,  the  United  States  did  not  promise  the  Creeks  $450,000 
for  the  land,  of  which  sum  $250,000  were  to  be  reserved  for  the  purpose 
named.  The  treaty  fixes  the  payment  at  $200,000,  and  then  provides 
further,  as  is  stated  in  the  text.  If  Greorgia's  claims  for  damages,  found 
to  be  well  grounded,  did  not  reach  the  sum  of  $250,000,  the  Creeks,  ao- 


CLAIM   OF   THE  CBBEKS.  293 

Slaves,  horses,  hogs,  and  whatever  else  had  been  lost,  were 
estimated  at  about  twice  their  real  value.^  Spite  of  this,  how- 
ever, the  $250,000  were  not  by  any  means  exhausted.  The 
good  opportunity  this  afforded  for  a  "job"  was,  of  course, 
not  allowed  to  remain  unused.  Interest  was  claimed.  Wirt, 
the  attorney  general,  showed,  in  two  official  opinions,  that  not 
only  according  to  all  previous  treaties  which  came  into  con- 
sideration here,  the  claim  was  entirely  baseless,  but  that  also 
the  treaty  of  Indian  Spring  expressly  excluded  the  allowing 
of  interest.^  Only  persevere!  —  such,  in  all  cases  like  this, 
is  tlie  motto  of  the  "log-rollers"  and  "lobbyists."  Twelve 
years  later,  six  per  cent,  interest  was  allowed  by  congress.' 

The  Creeks,  too,  had  claiined  the  money.  They  had  as 
Kttle  right  to  it  as  the  slaveholders  of  Georgia.  But  if  the 
government  thought  of  paying  it  out  at  all,  equity  unques- 

cording  to  the  treaty,  did  not  have  the  slightest  claim  to  the  rest  of  the 
sum,  but  of  course,  Georgia  had  jxist  as  Uttle  claim  to  it. 

The  many  similar  inaccuracies  of  Giddings,  both  in  his  speeches  and  in 
his  book,  "The  Exiles  of  Florida,  Col.,  1858,"  I  shall  not  pay  any  atten- 
tion to.  I  have  only  desired  by  this  example  to  show  how  cautiously  he 
must  be  used,  because  of  the  tendency  and  coloring  of  his  representations. 
Wilson,  who  had  nothing  whatever  of  the  critical  faculty,  simply  copies 
what  he  finds  in  Giddings. 

'  Op.  of  the  Att  Gen.,  I,  p.  551. 

» Op.  of  the  Att.  Gen.,  I,  pp.  550-562,  June  11  and  July  20,  1822. 

« Law  of  June  30,  1834,  Stat,  at  L.,  IV,  p.  721.  Giddings  (Sp.,  p.  5) 
says:  "But  the  slaveholders  also  claimed  it  [the rest  of  the  $250,000]. 
They  sent  their  petitions  to  this  body  asking  for  it.  These  petitions  were 
referred  to  a  select  committee,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  Mr.  Gilmer,  a 
distinguished  member  from  Georgia.  That  committee,  after  the  most  ma- 
ture dehberation,  reported  to  this  body  that  the  money  '  justly  belonged 
to  the  owners  of  those  fugitive  slaves,  as  a  compensation  for  the  offspring 
which  they  would  have  borne  to  their  masters,  had  they  remained  in  servi- 
tude.' And  it  was  paid  to  them  by  act  of  congress."  As  in  the  Stat,  at 
L.  I  find  only  the  law  cited,  I  think  1  may  assume  that  Giddings  has 
reference  to  this.  Gilmer's  report  I  overlooked  in  the  study  of  the  so-called 
congressional  documents,  and  now  I  have  not  access  to  the  reports  of  the 
committeeaL 


294  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

tionably  demanded  that  it  should  be  given  to  them,  since,  in 
the  stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  Indian  Spring,  the  value  of 
the  ceded  land  was  estimated  at  $450,000.^  As  congress 
decided  against  them,  they  thought  that  they  might  claim 
the  slaves  of  the  Seminoles  as  compensation.  The  Serainoles 
repelled  the  claim  with  all  the  more  decision,  because  the 
slaves  had  grown  by  intermarriage  to  be  a  part  of  the  tribe, 
and  had  obtained  great  influence.  If  the  Indian  policy 
hitherto  followed  had  been  pursued  in  relation  to  the  Semi- 
noles, they  would  have,  been  quietly  left  in  Florida  until  the 
density  of  the  white  population  made  their  removal  neces- 
sary, and  the  law  of  June  30,  1834,  would,  presumably,  have 
had  no  further  practical  consequences.  But  to  the  slave- 
holders of  Georgia  and  Florida,  they  were  a  thorn  in  the 
^esh,  for  the  reason  that  fugitive  slaves  could  always  count 
on  being  readily  received  by  them.^    Hence,  the  adminis- 

'  Congress  itself  recognized  this  later,  inasmuch  as  it,  by  the  law  of  the 
11th  of  August,  184S,  granted  anotherpayraentof  $141,055.91  to  the  Creeks, 
The  United  States,  therefore,  paid  for  the  land  conveyed  by  the  Creeks  not 
$450,030,  but  $591,055.91.  In  the  assignment  of  reasons  for  the  subse- 
quent grant  we  read:  "  And  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  matter  of  doubt  whether 
the  obligation  of  the  United  States  under  said  article  extended  further  than 
to  pay  the  state  of  Georgia  whatever  balance  might  be  found  due  to  her 
citizens  from  the  Creek  nation."  It  was  not  precisely  a  happy  thought  to 
wish  to  cover  up  with  so  bold  an  untruth  the  fact  that  the  former  congress 
had  prostituted  itself.    Stat,  at  L.,  IX,  p.  301. 

•In  an  address  of  prominent  citizens  of  Florida  to  the  president  we  read: 
"  While  this  indomitable  people  continue  where  they  now  are,  the  owners 
of  slaves  in  our  territory,  and  even  in  the  states  contiguous,  cannot,  for  a 
moment,  in  anything  like  security,  enjoy  this  kind  of  property. "  Giddings, 
Sp.,  p.  8.  In  a  similar  letter  to  the  secretary  of  war,  dated  the  18th  of 
March,  1837,  it  is  said:  "Many  slaves  were  induced  or  encouraged  by 
the  Indians,  before  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  to  abscond  from 
their  owners  and  take  shelter  in  the  Indian  country,  where  they  now  are." 
Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Congr,,  3d  Sess.,  No.  225,  p.  56.  Art.  VII,  of  the  treaty 
of  Camp  Moultrie,  Sept.  18,  1823,  obligated  the  Seminoles  "to  use  all 
nece&sary  exertions  to  apprehend  and  deUver  the  same  [absconding  slaves, 
or  fugitives  from  justice]  to  the  agent."    Stat,  at  L.,  VII,  p.  225. 


TEEATT   WITH    THE    SEMINOLES.  295 

tration  had  been  long  urged  to  remove  them  from  the  terri- 
tory. That  in  matters  of  this  kind  Jackson's  good  will  could 
be  counted  on,  Georgia  had  already  had  sufficient  experi- 
ence.    Nor  did  he  now  refuse  his  kind  services. 

On  the  9th  of  May,  1832,  a  treaty  was  closed  ^  at  Payne's 
Landing,  with  fifteen  chiefs  of  the  Seminoles,  according  to 
the  terms  of  which  they  were  to  send  a  commission  to  ex- 
amine the  land  west  of  the  Mississippi  which  had  been 
allotted  to  the  Seminoles.  If  the  commission  liked  the  land, 
and  if  they  found  the  Creeks  ready  to  reunite  with  the  Sem- 
inoles, the  latter  were  to  begin  their  emigration  thither  as 
early  in  the  year  1833  as  possible,  and  to  have  completely 
vacated  Florida  before  the  end  of  the  year  1835.  The  com- 
mission expressed  themselves  satisfied  with  what  they  had 
found,  and  the  members  of  it  signed,  on  the  28th  of  March, 
1833,  a  supplementary  treaty  at  Fort  Gibson,  in  which  they 
promised  to  begin  their  emigration  "  as  soon  as  the  govern- 
ment will  make  arrangements  for  their  emigration  satisfac- 
tory to  the  Seminole  nation."  ^ 

The  slaves,  for  fear  of  the  Creeks,  exerted  all  their  influence 
to  frustrate  the  carrying  out  of  these  treaties.  As  early  as 
the  20th  and  26th  of  January,  1834,  Governor  Duval  gave 
official  expression  to  his  conviction  that  the  removal  of  the 
Indians  would  not  be  possible  until  tlie  slaves  had  been 

'  Stat,  at  L.,  VII,  pp.  368-370.  It  has  often  been  asserted  of  this  treaty, 
as  of  so  manj  other  treaties  with  the  Indians,  that  it  was  obtained  in  an 
underhanded  manner  through  the  agencies  of  bribery  and  whisky.  In  a 
letter  of  the  18th  of  June,  1839,  from  Garey's  Ferry,  East  Florida,  we  read: 
•'  It  has  doubtless  been  suggested  to  your  mind,  on  perusing  General  Ma- 
comb's '  order '  of  the  18th  of  May,  announcing  the  termination  of  hos- 
tihties,  that  his  arrangement  is  a  tacit  but  free  avowal  of  the  fraudulence 
of  the  Payne's  Landing  Treaty,  which  produced  this  atrocious  and  expen- 
sive war."  Niles,  LVI,  p.  289.  Adams  writes  on  the  28th  of  March, 
1838,  in  his  diary:  "  But  it  is  in  vain  to  plead  for  justice  m  any  case  con- 
cerning Indians."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IX,  p.  618. 

» Stat,  at  L.,  VII,  pp.  423,  424. 


296  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

mastered.  But  what  was  disagreeable  in  the  treaties  to  the 
Seminoles  determined  Jackson  to  insist  on  them  to  the  ut- 
most, and  without  any  regard  for  consequences.  His  order 
was,  that  in  case  the  complaints  of  the  slaveholders  proved 
to  be  well  founded,  the  Seminoles  should  be  informed  that 
they  should  keep  themselves  in  readiness  to  emigrate  with- 
out delay.  The  Seminoles  did  not  obey,  and  the  president 
prepared  to  coerce  the  "  breakers  of  the  treaty." 

The  administration  and  its  party  in  congress  endeavored 
later  to  justify  their  policy  by  this  breach  of  the  treaty.  But 
if  we  examine  the  matter  somewhat  more  closely,  it  becomes 
apparent  that  the  charge  had  a  very  frail  foundation.  Article 
7  of  the  Payne's  Landing  treaty  provided:  "The  Seminole 
Indians  will  remove  within  three  years  after  the  ratification 
of  this  agreement."  It  may  be  possible  to  raise  a  question 
as  to  what  is  meant  by  the  ratification  of  an  agreement  made 
with  Indians;  yet  it  was  plain  that  that  provision  meant 
that  the  three  years  were  to  be  reckoned  from  the  day  on 
which  the  agreement  was  perfected.  But,  according  to  the 
constitution,  no  treaty  is  perfected  until  it  has  received  the 
assent  of  the  senate.  Jackson  had  allowed  nearly  two  years 
to  elapse  without  procuring  this.  The  proclamation  of  the 
treaty  was  not  made  until  the  12th  of  April,  1834.  Even 
if  the  manner  in  which  the  two  treaties  were  obtained  gave 
the  Seminoles  no  well-grounded  reason  to  question  their 
binding  force,  the  administration  did  not  have  the  right  to 
compel  their  emigration  by  force  of  arms  before  the  end  of 
Jackson's  presidency. 

But  whatever  the  law  might  be,  policy  certainly  required 
that  the  utmost  possible  should  be  done  to  come  to  a  satis- 
factory understanding  with  the  Seminoles.  If  it  were  not 
possible  to  estimate  correctly  the  immense  difficulties  which 
had  later  to  be  overcome,  yet  a  little  reflection  would  have 
ghown  even  now  that  a  harder  stand  would  have  to  be 


THE   SLAVE   CHASE.  297 

made  here  than  in  any  previous  Indian  war.^  But  instead 
of  proceeding  with  caution  and  moderation,  the  whites  were 
allowed  to  do  unpunished  the  very  thing  which  it  was  already 
known  would,  more  than  any  other,  excite  the  Seminoles  to 
resistance  and  vensfeance.  The  federal  officers  soon  drove 
the  administration  to  the  point  where  it  did  not  lag  behind 
individual  citizens  in  this  matter.'^  The  Indian  agent,  Gen- 
eral Thompson,  sent  information  on  the  28th  of  October, 

1834,  to  Washington,  that  some  whites  expressed  a  great 
desire  to  get  control  of  the  negroes  of  the  Seminoles;  and 
he  at  the  same  time  expressed  the  conviction,  that  there  were 
already  negroes,  who  had  been  brought  up  by  the  Indians, 
in  the  hands  of  the  whites.     And  on  the  9tli  of  January, 

1835,  he  advised  the  sending  of  an  expedition  to  drive  the 
Indians  within  their  limits,  and  "  to  capture  negroes,  many 

'  The  secretary  of  war,  Poinsett,  writes,  in  his  official  report  of  November 
30, 1839 :  "  Heretofore  the  Indian  population  of  our  states  and  territories  has 
been  expelled  by  the  gradual  increase  and  advance  of  a  superior  race. 
Whereas,  in  Florida,  the  attempt  has  been  made,  for  the  first  time,  to 
drive  the  aborigines  from  the  unsettled  wilderness,  or,  what  is  still  more 
difficult,  to  catch  them  for  the  purpose  of  transporting  them  beyond  its 
limits.  If  the  Indians  of  Florida  had  a  country  to  retire  to,  they  would 
have  been  driven  out  of  the  territory  long  ago;  but  they  are  hemmed  in 
by  the  sea,  and  must  defend  themselves  to  the  uttermost,  or  surrender  to 
be  transported  beyond  it.  To  reduce  them  to  that  extremity,  spread,  as 
they  are,  over  a  space  of  at  least  forty- five  thousand  square  miles  of  country 
abounding  in  provisions  suited  to  their  habits,  defended  by  a  climate  benign 
to  them,  but  deadly  to  the  whites,  and  presenting  difficulties  to  the  march 
of  armies  that  have  been  often  described  and  cannot  be  exaggerated,  will 
require  great  exertions,  and,  probably,  other  means  than  those  hitherto 
tried."    Niles,  LVII,  p.  314. 

•The  "New  York  Star,"  1838,  in  its  report  of  Osceola's  death,  says: 
"Had  his  [Osceola's]  coimsels  been  strictly  adhered  to  by  the  greedy, 
grasping  government  agents  sent  into  Florida  before  the  war  broke  out, 
all  would  have  been  well;  but  they  had  their  selfish  views,  and  were  pun- 
ished for  it  with  ignominious  death;  and  many  is  the  stream  and  the  ever- 
glade there,  that  for  these  mercenary  men  has  since  drunk  deeply  of  the 
blood  of  our  best  chivahy."    Niles,  LUI,  p.  388. 


298  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

of  whom  it  is  believed  are  runaway  slaves."  Thus,  during 
the  year  preceding  the  war,  an  influential  federal  officer 
calls  officially  on  the  administration  to  employ  the  Union 
army  in  the  slave-chase.  The  same  Thompson  soon  after 
lent  his  official  aid  to  the  act  which  was  destined  to  become 
the  immediate  cause  of  the  war. 

The  wife  of  the  Seminole  chief  Osceola,^  a  half-breed 
Indian,  was  seized,  when  on  a  visit  at  Fort  King,  as  the 
daughter  of  a  slave,  and  delivered  to  the  owner  of  the 
mother  as  a  slave.  Osceola  thereupon  broke  forth  in  threats. 
Thompson  had  him  put  in  chains,  but  set  him  free  after  six 
days,  when  the  chief  had  apparently  resigned  himself  to  his 
fate.  With  genuine  Indian  patience,  Osceola  lay  in  wait 
weeks  and  months  for  the  opportunity  of  revenge.  The 
opportunity  finally  presented  itself  on  the  28th  of  December, 
1835.  As  Thompson  was  sitting  down  to  table  with  some 
of  his  associates  in  his  house,  hard  by  the  fort,  a  volley  was 
fired  through  the  open  door  into  the  company.  Thompson 
was  pierced  by  fifteen  balls,  and  four  others  of  the  company 
fell  dead.'^  On  the  same  day,  a  body  of  one  hundred  and 
eleven  soldiers,  under  the  command  of  Major  Dade,  fell  into 
an  ambush  and  were  butchered,  all  but  three  men.'  . 

The  second  Seminole  war  commenced  with  these  deeds  oi 
blood.  Even  leaving  the  slavery  question  out  of  considera- 
tion, it  is  one  of  the  most  comfortless  chapters  in  the  history 
of  the  United  States,  although  the  leaders  showed  circum- 
spection and  boldness,  and  although  the  troops  in  many  cases 
gave  evidence  of  wonderful  endurance,  fidelity  to  duty,  and 

'  The  name  is  often  written  Oceola  also.  His  white  father's  name  was 
Powell,  and  this  name  also  is  frequently  added  to  that  of  the  celebrated 
chief. 

'  Niles,  XLIX,  pp.  36S,  395.  See  a  description  varying  from  this  by 
Lieutenant  Harris,  in  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  75. 

*  Niles,  XLIX,  p.  367.  The  accurate  report  of  the  lafit  survivor,  Ransom 
Clark,  is  to  be  found  in  LII,  pp.  254,  255. 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  INDIAH   WARFARE.  299 

bravery.  The  number  of  the  red  and  black  warriors  who  for 
several  years  bade  defiance  to  the  fii*st  great  power  of  the  new 
world,  was  ridiculously  small.  But  it  mattered  not  with  how 
many  generals  the  thing  was  attempted,  not  one  of  them  suc- 
ceeded. If  the  endeavor  to  bring  the  enemy  to  bay  was  suc- 
cessful, the  whites  were,  as  a  mle,  the  victors;  but  for  the 
most  part,  the  results  obtained  were  out  of  all  proportion  with 
the  hardships  and  dangers  of  the  expeditions.  And  while  here 
the  troops  waded  in  mud  up  to  their  hips,  that  they  might 
finally  capture  a  number  of  men  which  might  be  counted  on 
one's  ten  fingers,  the  plantations  right  and  left  were  burned, 
and  the  inhabitants  murdered  in  the  crudest  manner.  It 
was  fully  experienced  what  it  meant  to  inaugurate  a  chase 
of  desperate  Indians  in  a  tropical  wilderness,  with  which 
only  a  few  unreliable  slaves  and  deserters  were  acquainted. 
If  the  rainy  season  began,  the  continuation  of  operations  was 
impossible;  but  the  burning  and  murdering  of  the  Indians 
went  on  the  whole  year.  In  a  word,  the  administration  had, 
with  awkward  grasp,  caught  a  viper  which  it  could  not  now 
drop,  for  every  day  brought  new  and  terrible  proof  in  sup- 
port of  the  presumption  that  the  property  and  life  of  the  in- 
habitants of  the  territory  would  now  not  be  safe  for  a  single 
moment  until  the  work  which  had  been  begun  was  really 
finished.  This,  therefore,  was  resolved  upon;  but  a  long 
time  elapsed  before  the  administration  or  the  generals  had 
formed  even  an  approximately  correct  judgment  as  to  the 
expenditure  of  force  which  it  would  require.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  certainly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  difficulties — and 
they  can  scarcely  be  over-estimated  —  which  the  natural  con- 
ditions oftered,  that  the  subjection  of  this  small  handful  of 
savages  cost  so  much  blood,  and  especially  such  large  suras 
of  money.*    But  the  transactions  of  the  military  court  of 

'  It  would  be  scarcely  possible  to  determine  the  cost  of  the  war,  and  would 
certainly  require  great  labor,  which  would  bring  no  remuneration.    Eapp's 


300  Jackson's  administkation  — annexation  of  texas. 

investigation  at  Frederick,  Maryland/  the  extremely  bitter 
and  violent  expressions  of  tlie  generals  against  one  another 
and  the  administration,  and  the  debates  in  congress,  show  both 
that  the  end  could  have  been  attained  earlier,  if  the  proper 
energy  had  been  displayed  from  the  first,  and  that  neither 
the  administration  nor  the  generals  had  acted  with  the  en- 
ergy with  which  they  might  have  acted.^    This,  however,  is 

estimate  in  his  Aus  und  Uber  Amerika,  II,  p.  85,  of  two  to  three  himdred 
millions,  is,  in  my  opinion,  much  too  high,  even  if  we  consider  the  war  to 
have  ended  with  the  emigration  of  Billy  Bowlegs  and  his  companions  in 
the  year  1848.  Giddings,  Sp.,  p.  172,  estimates  the  cost  in  1846  at  forty 
millions.  Benton,  Thhty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  70,  says:  "  Some  thirty  mill- 
ions." Downing,  the  delegate  of  the  territory  in  congress,  gives,  on  the 
13th  of  July,  1840,  the  average  annual  cost  at  five  millions.  Niles,  LVIII, 
p.  bl9.  From  the  1st  of  January,  1836,  to  October  1,  1837,  $10,120,000 
were  appropriated  by  congress  "for  the  suppression  of  Indian  hostihties  " 
throughout  the  entire  Union.    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IX,  p.  402. 

'  November,  1836,  to  March,  1837. 

'Colonel  White  relates  in  a  letter  of  the  15th  of  February,  1837,  that 
Jackson,  in  a  conversation,  had  said  to  him:  '"  Let  the  damned  cowards 
defend  their  country;'  that  he  could  take  fifty  women,  and  whip  every  In- 
dian that  had  ever  crossed  the  Suwanee,  and  that  the  people  of  Florida  had 
done  less  to  put  down  the  war,  or  to  defend  themselves,  than  any  other 
people  in  the  United  States.  He  said  they  ought  to  have  crushed  it  at 
once,  if  they  had  been  men  of  spirit  and  character.  ...  He  said  the 
men  had  better  run  oflF,  or  let  the  Indians  shoot  them,  that  the  women 
might  get  husbands  of  courage,  and  breed  up  men  who  would  defend  the 
country.  He  maintains  thatthere  never  was  six  hundred  Indians."  Niles, 
LII,  p.  98.  The  "  Globe  "  (ibid.,  p.  134)  contested,  indeed,  the  truth  of 
the  story,  but  in  such  a  manner  that  it  becomes  only  more  probable.  In 
moments  of  calm,  Jackson  did  not  certainly  pass  so  severe  a  judgment  on 
the  inhabitants  of  the  territory,  but  on  this  account  it  would  not  have  been, 
considering  his  character,  by  any  means  surprising,  if,  in  a  paroxysm 
of  rage,  he  had  given  utterance  to  such  invective.  Moreover,  the  re- 
proaches do  not  seem  to  have  been  entirely  groundless.  When,  in  1840, 
the  project  of  conquering  Florida  by  settlers,  to  each  of  whom  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  acres  of  land  were  to  be  given  after  the  complete  removal 
of  the  Seminoles  was  debated,  Preston,  of  South  Carolina,  said  in  the  sen- 
ate: "Ours  is  a  slaveholding  population,  of  rich  and  extensive  planters, 
and  Florida  will  be  cultivated  only  by  slaves.    And  is  it  expected  that 


JESUP'S   BREACH   OF   FAITH.  301 

the  smallest  reproach  which  must  be  made  against  a  part  of 
those  who,  either  in  the  council  or  in  the  Held,  were  pri- 
marily responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  war. 

Osceola,  by  far  the  most  important,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  most  poetical  figure  of  the  war,  died  of  quinsy  on  the  26th 
of  January,  1838,  in  Fort  Moultrie,  in  the  harbor  of  Charles- 
ton. The  friends  of  the  administration  broke  out  in  loud 
cries  of  triumph  and  jubilation,  on  the  news  of  his  capture, 
on  the  21st  of  October,  1837.  They  had  little  reason  for 
this,  although  he  might  have  been  worth  as  much  as  some 
hundreds  of  warriors.  The  name  of  Osceola  has  an  ugly 
sound  in  the  ears  of  every.  American  patriot,  for  the  bold 
warrior  was  not  overcome  in  honorable  battle;  he  fell  into 
the  snares  of  dishonorable  treachery.  He  had  come  for 
a  parley  to  the  neighborhood  of  Fort  Peyton,  and  while  he 
was  speaking,  under  the  protection  of  the  white  flag,  the 
troops  of  General  Hernandez,  by  order  of  General  Jesup,^  fell 
upon  him  and  his  comrades,  disarmed  them,  and  carried 
them  away  as  prisoners.  Jesup  justified  this  disgraceful 
breach  of  faith  by  the  plea  that  "  their  [the  Indians']  answers 
were  evasive  and  unsatisfactory,"  and  that  the  same  chiefs 
had  caused  the  breach  of  the  agreement  entered  into  half  a 
year  previous.  As  if  one  piece  of  knavery  could  justify 
another,  and  as  if  the  word  of  an  Indian  chief  and  that  of  a 
Union  general  should  be  measured  by  the  same  measure!  If 
Jesup  estimated  his  own  honor  so  cheap,  he  should  not  have 
forgotten  that  he  wore  the  uniform  of  the  United  States,  and 
that  not  only  his  own  honor  but  the  honor  of  the  United 

slaveholders  will,  for  a  bounty,  fight  the  Indians  and  free  negroes?  The 
supposition  is  preposterous.  .  .  .  And  what  is  now  demanded,  is  to 
put  the  country  in  a  condition  to  be  settled  by  southern  men.  And  we 
have  the  right,  having  stipulated  for  the  land,  to  say  to  tlie  government, 
you  shall  give  us  the  land  and  prepare  it  for  that  kind  of  population  by 
whom  alone  it  can  be  cultivated."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  36. 
*  See  Jesup's  own  account  and  his  orders.  Nilea,  LIII,  pp.  262,  263. 


302  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

States  was  pledged  by  the  white  flag  which  he  disgraced. 
Voices  from  among  the  people  were,  indeed,  raised,  which 
gave  expression  to  this  feeling  with  indignation  loud  and 
deep,  but  those  who  were  called  primarily  to  watch  over  the 
honor  of  the  starry  banner  spoke  not  one  word  of  blame. 

But  it  was,  moreover,  a  question  not  only  of  morals  but 
of  politics.  If  men  were  convinced  that  the  Indian  problem 
could  be  solved  only  by  cunning  and  force,  it  was  as  unwise 
as  it  was  unworthy  to  carry  on  the  idle  play  with  conven- 
tions and  treaties.  If  the  unfaithfulness  of  the  Indians  was 
80  great  that  a  treaty  with  them  had  no  value,  every  treaty 
must  have  liad  the  ojreat  disadvantas^e  that  it  would  lead  the 
United  States  into  the  temptation,  if  not  the  necessity,  to 
break  it  also.  But,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  Indians  found, 
in  the  slightest  breach  of  faith  on  the  part  of  tlie  United 
States,  a  justification  for  the  greatest  breach  of  faith  on 
theirs.  "What  right  henceforth  did  the  United  States  have 
to  complain,  if  every  transaction,  treaty  and  convention  were 
to  the  Serainoles  only  a  means  to  collect  their  weakened 
forces,  and  to  practice  all  kinds  of  treachery?  The  Indian 
problem  has  certainly  always  been  one  of  so  great  difliculty 
that  scarcely  any  nation  could  have  solved  it  without  commit- 
ting many  faults,  and  the  making  of  great  mistakes;  but  it  is 
just  as  certain  that  its  difficulties  were  very  frequently  in- 
creased tenfold  by  completely  inexcusable  knavery.' 

The  first  question  to  which  Osceola  and  the  other  chiefs 
gave  an  "  evasive  and  unsatisfactory  answer "  was,  according 
to  Jesup's  instructions  to  Hernandez:  "  Are  they  prepared 
to  deliver  all  the  negroes  taken  from  the  citizens,  at  once?" 
And  as  here,  so  also  in  all  the  important  turning  points 
we  find  the  red,  or  rather  the  black  thread  of  the  specific 

*  Even  in  the  Seminole  war,  Osceola's  betrayal  is  not  an  isolated  one. 
See,  for  instance,  the  trick  played  by  Lieutenant  Hanson,  on  the  3d  of 
August,  1839.    NUes,  LVI,  p.  385. 


JESUP'S   OEDEK.  303 

slave-interest  plainly  visible.  Jesup  had  succeeded,  on  the 
6th  of  March,  1837,  in  concluding  an  agreement  at  Camp 
Dade,^  from  which  he  confidently  expected  the  end  of  the 
war.  He  considered  the  Indians  tired  of  the  war,  and  his 
dread  that,  notwithstanding  this,  it  would  break  out  again, 
was  based  simply  on  the  fear  that  "unprincipled  whites" 
would  put  no  restraint  on  their  greed  for  the  slaves.'^  He, 
therefore,  on  the  5th  of  April,  issued  an  army  order  (No.  79), 
providing  that  no  white  not  engaged  in  the  service  of  the 
United  States  should  enter  the  territory  between  the  Saint 
John  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  south  of  Fort  Drane.^  A 
meeting  of  citizens  of  Saint  Augustin,  and  "other  inhabit- 
ants of  East  Florida,"  "protested  solemnly"  against  this 
order,  because  it  violated  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  slave- 
holders.* 


'  Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Oongr.,  3d  Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No.  225,  pp.  52,  53. 

*  Jesup  to  Colonel  J.  Warren,  March,  1837.  "  There  is  no  disposition  on 
the  part  of  the  great  body  of  the  Indians  to  renew  hostilities;  and  they 
will,  I  am  sure,  faithfully  fulfill  their  engagements  if  the  inhabitants  of 
the  territory  be  prudent;  but  any  attempt  to  seize  their  negroes  or  other 
property  would  be  followed  by  an  instant  resort  to  arms.  I  have  some 
hopes  of  inducing  both  the  Indians  and  Indian  negroes  to  unite  in  bringing 
in  the  negroes  taken  from  the  citizens  during  the  war."    Ibid.,  p.  9. 

'The  reasons  for  the  order  read:  "  The  commanding  general  has  reason 
to  beUeve  that  the  interference  of  unprincipled  white  men  with  the  negro 
property  of  the  Seminole  Indians,  if  not  immediately  checked,  will  prevent 
their  emigration,  and  lead  to  a  renewal  of  the  war."  Ibid.,  p.  2.  See 
also  pp.  8,  9, 11.  A  letter  dated  Black  Creek,  April  27, 1837,  says :  "The 
order  of  the  5th  instant,  which  appears  to  have  caused  some  excitement, 
was  highly  necessary;  and  of  this  I  was  enabled  to  judge  from  being  on 
the  spot."    Niles,  Lll,  p.  163. 

*  In  the  protest  (without  date),  we  read:  "  They  [the  undersigned]  per- 
suade themselves  that  the  preservation  of  the  negro  property  belonging  to 
the  inhabitants  of  this  desolated  country  must  be  seen  by  him  [Jesup]  to 
be  an  object  of  scarcely  less  moment  [as  a  pacification].  .  .  .  They  can- 
not but  feel  that  the  particular  rights  and  interests  of  the  slaveholders  of 
east  Florida  are  made  somewhat  too  palpably  by  the  order  refen-ed  to, 


304  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

That  Jesup's  order  must  have  greatly  grieved  the  slave- 
holders is  self-evident.  But  even  if  the  general  did  not  at- 
tend to  their  interests  to  the  extent  that  they  desired,  they 
could  not  reproach  him  with  having  left  them  entirely  un- 
considered. On  the  8th  of  April  he  announced  that  he  had 
engaged  the  cliiefs  to  surrender  all  the  negroes  who  belonged 
to  whites,^  and  although  in  his  own  opinion  he  had  the  right 
only  in  relation  to  the  negroes  taken  during  the  war,  he 
promised,  on  the  27th  of  April,  not  to  allow  those  who  had 
absconded  before  it,  to  leave  the  country.*  The  fear  which 
he  had  expressed  in  the  order  of  April  5  had,  however,  been 
already  confirmed.  The  impatient  haste  with  which  the 
whites  had  endeavored  to  get  hold  of  the  negroes,  frightened 
both  Indians  and  negroes  back  into  the  wilderness.'  It  should 
have  been  expected  that  Jesup  would  have  placed  a  still 
severer  check  on  the  whites.  Instead  of  this,  he  now  asked 
for  the  giving  up  of  all  negroes  who  belonged  to  whites,* 
and  had  Osceola  notified  by  Colonel  Harney  that  he  (Jesup) 

and,  as  the  undersigned  venture  to  think,  unnecessarily,  a  sacrifice  to  that 
end."    Exec.  Doc,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  No.  225,  pp.  108,  109. 

'  "  liiave  made  an  arrangement  with  the  chiefs  to-day,  to  surrender  the 
negroes  of  white  men,  particularly  those  taken  diiring  the  war."  Exec. 
Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  No.  225,  p.  10. 

•  "  I  shall  require  the  chiefs,  before  they  depart,  to  surrender  all  negroes 
taken  during  the  war.  Those  who  absconded  previous  to  the  war  shall  not 
leave  the  country,  though  I  have  no  right  to  require  the  Indians  to  surren- 
der them."    Ibid,  p.  13. 

* "  The  negroes  have  generally  taken  the  alarm,  and  but  few  of  them 
come  in,  and  those  who  remain  out  prevent  the  Indians  from  coming. 
But  for  the  premature  attempt  of  some  of  the  citizens  of  Florida  to  obtain 
possession  of  their  slaves,  the  majority  of  those  taken  by  the  Indians  dur- 
ing the  war,  as  well  as  those  who  had  absconded  previous  to  it,  would  have 
been  secured  before  this  time.  More  than  thirty  of  the  Indian  negro  men 
were  in  and  near  my  camp,  when  some  of  the  citizens  who  had  lost  ne- 
groes came  to  demand  them.  The  Indian  negroes  immediately  disap- 
peared, and  have  not  since  been  heard  of."    Ibid.,  pp.  12,  13. 

*  Order  to  Colonel  Harney  of  May  28,  1837.    Ibid.,  p.  16. 


JESUP^S  TACTICS.  305 

would  have  .them  tracked  bj  flying  parties  with  blood- 
hounds from  Cuba,  and  that  it  was  his  intention  to  hang 
every  one  who  did  not  give  himself  up.^ 

This  was  before  the  breach  of  the  convention  of  March  6,  on 
the  part  of  the  Indians,  by  means  of  which  Jesup  wished  to 
justify  his  treachery  towards  Osceola.  Not  until  the  2d  of 
June  was  the  camp  of  the  Indians  who  had  come  to  emi- 
grate to  the  west,  broken  up  by  the  Micausaukies,*  partly 
by  persuasion  and  partly  by  force.' 

Jesup  was  not  the  man  to  fold  his  arms  idly  with 
the  complaint:  "All  is  lost!"*  He  appealed  to  the  cov- 
etousness  of  his  soldiers  to  urge  them  to  do  their  best  in 
the  war,  the  resumption  of  which  had  now  become  unavoid- 
able: the  property  of  the  Seminoles  which  feU  into  their 
hands  was  to  be  theirs,  and  the  negroes  were  named  first  in 
this  connection.'  The  same  bait  was  held  out  to  their  In- 
dian allies.*  Besides,  the  general  promised  them  a  reward 
of  twenty  dollars  per  head  for  the  negroes  captured  alive 
who  belonged  to  whites;  which  sum  was  paid  not  by  the 

'  May  25, 1837.    Ibid.,  p.  16. 

*  The  name  is  spelled  in  different  ways. 
»  NUes,  LII,  p.  261. 

*  "  All  is  lost,  and  principally,  I  fear,  by  the  influence  of  the  negroes 
and  of  the  people  who  were  the  subject  of  our  correspondence."  Jesup 
to  Colonel  Gadsden,  June  14,  1837.  Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess., 
No.  225,  p.  18.  The  earlier  correspondence  between  Jesup  and  Gadsden 
here  mentioned  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  records. 

*  "  There  is  now  no  obligation  to  spare  the  property  of  the  Indians  — 
they  have  not  spared  that  of  the  citizens;  their  negroes,  cattle  and  horses, 
as  well  as  other  property  which  they  possess,  will  belong  to  the  corps  by 
which  they  may  be  captured."  Jesup  to  Colonel  "Warren,  July  7,  1837. 
Ibid.,  p.  19.  The  army  order  in  question,  No.  160,  is  dated  August  8. 
Ibid.,  p.  4. 

*  '*  In  addition  to  the  inducements  held  out  to  the  Indians  who  may  en- 
ter the  service,  is  that  of  the  Seminole  property.  Their  negroes,  horses 
and  cattle  (and  they  are  rich  in  that  description  of  property)  will  be  given 

20 


306  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texa.s. 

owners  but  from  the  resources  of  the  state.^  At  the  same 
time,  the  negroes  belonging  to  the  Seminoles,  and  who  liad 
been  captured  by  the  troops,  were  taken  bj  the  general  "  on 
account  of  the  government,"  and  this  "  purchase  "  received 
the  sanction  of  the  administration  .'^ 

The  consequence  of  this  policy  was  that  in  a  few  months 
the  costly  game,  in  form  of  man,  was  almost  completely  cap- 
tured/ But  what  had  become  of  the  honor  and  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  in  consequence?  "With  the 
aid  of  the  basest  passion  of  man,  the  troops  were  trained  to 
the  lowest  of  all  businesses  —  from  the  national  treasury  the 

to  the  captors;  the  Creek  waxriors,  who  captured  but  a  small  portion  of  the 
Seminole  property,  received  for  their  captures  between  fourteen  and  fifteen 
thousand  dollars."  Jesup  to  Captain  Armstrong,  September  17,  1837. 
Ibid.,  p.  20.    Likewise  to  Captain  Bonnerville,  p.  21. 

' "  To  induce  the  Creek  Indians  to  take  alive,  and  not  destroy  the 
negroes  of  citizens  who  had  been  captured  by  the  Seminoles,  a  reward  was 
promised  them  for  all  they  should  secure;  they  captured  and  secured  thirty- 
five,  who  had  been  returned  to  their  owners;  the  owners  have  paid  nothing, 
but  the  promise  to  the  Indians  must  be  fulfilled.  The  sum  of  twenty  dol- 
lars will  be  allowed  to  them  for  each,  from  the  public  funds."  Army 
order  No.  175  of  September  6,  1837.    Ibid.,  p.  4. 

*  "  In  September  last  General  Jesup  advised  the  [War]  Department  that 
he  had  purchased  from  the  Creek  warriors  aU  the  negroes  (about  80  in 
number)  captured  by  them,  for  $8,000,  and  this  purchase  was  approved  on 
the  7th  of  October."  C.  A.  Harris,  Commissioner,  to  Captain  S.  Cooper, 
Acting  Secretary  of  War,  May  1,  1838.  Ibid.,  p.  43.  The  letter  of  Jesup 
in  question  to  the  minister  of  war,  Poinsett,  is  on  p.  70. 

'  Jesup  writes  on  the  5th  of  March,  1838,  to  Governor  Gilmer,  of  Georgia: 
"  The  Indian  negroes  captured,  and  separated  from  the  Indians  by  the  sev- 
eral detachments  of  the  army,  during  the  present  campaign,  amount  to 
about  two  hundred  and  forty;  besides  which,  nearly  all  the  negroes  taken 
from  citizens  have  been  recaptured,  and  restored  to  their  owners."  Ibid., 
p.  25.  And  on  the  15th  of  March  Lieutenant  Freeman  informs  Commis- 
sioner Harris :  "  From  the  best  information  I  can  obtain,  there  are  not  more 
than  fifty  negroes,  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes,  remaining  in  the  nation,  of 
whom  not  more  than  five  or  six  are  the  property  of  white  people."  Ibid., 
p.  80. 


THE   ADM1NI8TEATI0N   AND   SLAVERY.  307 

premiums  were  taken  which  helped  the  slaveholders  to  their 
slaves  again  —  the  administration  became  a  slaveholder  by 
wholesale,  and  made  its  payments  with  the  means  of  the  na- 
tion. Where  was  the  law  or  the  constitutional  provision 
which  authorized  this?  The  administration  even  bought 
negroes  whom  it  had  not  the  least  right  to  consider  slaves. 
Where  in  the  constitution  is  there  a  word  about  slaves  of  the 
Indians?  It  knows  only  of  persons  who  are  kept  "  for  work 
or  service  in  a  state."  Or  were  the  United  States,  perhaps, 
obliged  by  art.  4,  sec.  2,  par.  3  of  the  constitution  to  see  to 
it  their  absconded  slaves  should  be  surrendered  to  the  In- 
dians also,  on  demand?  Slavery  existed  only  by  virtue  of 
municipal  law,  and  the  laws  and  the  constitution  knew  noth- 
ing of  a  municipal  law  of  the  Indians  binding  on  the  United 
States.^ 

'  Hurd,  The  Law  cf  Freedom  and  Bondage  in  the  United  States,  I,  §  508, 
p.  561,  draws  an  accurate  and  correct  distinction  between  "rights  supported 
by  a  law  of  national  authority,  and  rights  supported  by  a  law  having  na- 
tional extent."  The  municipal  law,  also,  of  the  states,  on  which  slavery 
was  based,  had  "  national  extent "  only  so  far  as  the  slave  was  in  the  state 
in  question,  or  a  fugitive  from  the  state.  In  the  territories,  slavery,  indeed, 
was  based  on  "national  authority,"  since  the  territories  have  no  legislative 
power  whatever  in  their  own  right.  And  in  relation  to  the  territories  it  is 
evidently  true  to  the  same  extent  as  in  relation  to  the  District  of  Columbia, 
that  congress  acts,  not  as  a  local  legislature,  but  as  the  legislature  of  the 
Union.  But  the  slave  law  of  the  territories  had  "national  extent "  only 
just  as  far  as  the  municipal  law  of  the  states  had,  because  the  constitution 
authorized,  and  at  the  same  time  obUgated,  the  Federal  government  to  give 
the  slave  law  ' '  national  extent ' '  only  that  far.  It  deserves  to  be  mentioned 
that  the  administration,  or  rather  Jesup,  was  not  satisfied  with  purchasing 
slaves  on  the  account  of  the  United  States,  who,  in  relation  to  the  United 
States,  were  not  slaves  at  all.  Jesup  writes  on  the  24th  of  September,  1837, 
to  Commissioner  Harris:  "The  Seminole  negro  prisoners  are  now  all  the 
property  of  the  public.  I  have  promised  Abraham  the  freedom  of  his  family 
if  he  be  faithful  to  us."  And  Harris  writes  to  the  secretary  of  war  on  the 
9th  of  May,  1838:  "  He  [the  attorney  of  the  Creeks]  will,  of  course,  hold 
them  (the  negroes  captured  by  the  Creek  warriors  in  Florida)  subject  to  the 
lawful  claims  of  all  white  persons.    Abraham  and  his  family  should  be  ex- 


308  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  teias. 

The  negroes  and  a  good  many  redskins  were  captured, 
but  the  end  of  the  war  conld  not,  on  that  account,  be  dis- 
cerned. Jesnp,  who  had  achieved  these  feats,  and  who 
loudly  boasted  of  them,  had,  notwithstanding,  come  to  the 
conviction  that  the  war  would  last  years  longer  unless  the 
demand  for  the  immediate  emigration  of  the  Seminoles 
was  desisted  from.  Hence  he  advised  that  they  should  be 
left  in  Florida  for  a  time,  but  that  they  should  be  confined 
to  a  definite  district;  that  is,  in  his  opinion,  the  government 
should  give  up  that  to  obtain  which  it  had  resorted  to  force.' 
The  secretary  of  war  unconditionally  rejected  the  proposi- 
tion,'*  and  Jesup's  prophecies  were  fulfilled. 

Another  year  of  sad  experience  brought  somewhat  more 

cepted  in  consequence  of  a  promise  made  by  General  Jesup."  Exec.  Doc., 
25th  CongT.,  3d  Sess.,  No.  225,  pp.  21,  29.  I  have  never  found  this  prece- 
dent mentioned  in  the  civil  war. 

'  '*  In  regard  to  the  Seminoles,  we  have  committed  the  error  of  attempt- 
ing to  remove  them  when  their  lands  were  not  required  for  agricultural 
purposes;  when  they  were  not  in  the  way  of  the  white  inhabitants;  and 
when  the  greater  portion  of  their  country  was  an  unexplored  wilderness,  of 
the  interior  of  which  we  were  as  ignorant  as  of  the  interior  of  China.  We 
exhibit,  in  our  present  contest,  the  first  instance,  perhaps,  since  the  com- 
mencement of  authentic  history,  of  a  nation  employing  an  army  to  explore 
a  country  (for  we  can  do  little  more  than  explore  it),  or  attempting  to  re- 
move a  band  of  savages  from  one  unexplored  wilderness  to  another.  .  . 
the  prospect  of  terminating  the  war  in  any  reasonable  time  is  any- 
thing but  flattering.  My  decided  opinion  is,  that  unless  immediate  emigra- 
tion be  abandoned,  the  war  will  be  continued  for  years  to  come,  and  at 
constantly  accumulating  expense.  Is  it  not  then  well  worthy  the  serious 
consideration  of  an  enlightened  government,  whether,  even  if  the  wilder- 
ness we  are  traversing  could  be  inhabited  by  the  white  man  (which  is  not 
the  fact),  the  object  we  are  contending  for  would  be  worth  the  cost?  I 
certainly  do  not  think  it  would;  indeed,  I  do  not  consider  the  country  south 
of  Chickasa  Hatchee  worth  the  medicines  we  shall  expend  in  driving  tlie 
Indians  from  it.''  Jesup  to  Poinsett,  February  11th,  1838.  Niles,  LIV, 
p.  51. 

' "  The  acta  of  the  executive  and  the  laws  of  congress  evince  a  determina- 
tion to  carry  out  the  measure  (the  removal  of  the  Seminoles  to  the  west), 
and  it  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  settled  policy  of  the  country.     .    .    .    They 


GENEBAL   MAGOMB^B   MISSION.  309 

wisdom.  A  law  of  March  3,  1839,  appropriated  five  thoa- 
sand  dollars  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  the  Seminoles.^  The 
president  acceded  to  the  wishes  of  congress  expressed  in  this 
law,  so  far  as  to  send  General  Macomb,  the  chief  of  the 
whole  federal  army,  to  Florida,  in  order  to  endeavor  to  bring 
about  peace.  He  hoped  that  this  choice  would  have  an 
imposing  effect  on  the  Seminoles,  and  make  them  more 
inclined  to  negotiation.  The  results  of  Macomb's  mission, 
however,  were  exceedinglv  dubious.  The  reconciliation  which 
he  effected  was  accomplished  only  with  a  few  Seminoles  of 
insufficient  influence,  was  not  put  in  the  form  of  a  written 
treaty,  and  was  ambiguously  indefinite  on  the  decisive  ques- 
tion.* Not  only  the  Seminoles, but  the  white  inhabitants  of 
the  territory  understood  the  agreement  to  mean  that  the 
Indians  were  promised  to  be  allowed  to  remain  in  it  for  an 
indefinite  length  of  time.  The  citizens  of  Leon  county  pro- 
tested against  the  "  treaty  "  which  granted  the  Seminoles  all 
that  they  wanted.  The  whites  and  Seminoles  could  not 
dwell  together  in  peace,  and  Florida  was  the  "  last  place  "  in 
the  United  States  in  which  the  Indians  should  be  suffered, 
since  every  foreign  enemy  would  find  an  ally  in  them,  all 
fugitive  slaves  find  a  warm  reception  among  them,  and  Flor- 
ida, and  through  Florida  all  the  slave  states,  be  endangered, 
in  case  of  a  war,  by  the  emancipated  negroes  of  the  West 

ought  to  be  captured  or  destroyed."  Poinsett  to  Jesup,  March  1, 1838. 
Niles,  LIV,  p.  52. 

'Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  358.  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  War  of  Nov.  30, 
1839.    Niles,  LVII,p.313. 

•  "  Nor  did  I  think  it  politic,  at  this  time,  to  say  anything  about  their 
emigration,  leaving  that  subject  open  to  such  future  arrangements  as  the 
government  may  think  proper  to  make  with  them.  No  restriction  upon  the 
pleasure  of  the  government  in  this  respect  has  been  imposed,  nor  has  any 
encouragement  been  given  to  the  Indians  that  tiiey  would  be  permitted 
permanently  to  remain  in  Florida."  Macomb's  report  to  the  secretary  of 
war,  May  22,  1839.    NUes,  LVI,  p.  249. 


310  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Indies.*  In  otlier  quarters,  it  was,  indeed,  claimed  that  the 
great  majority  of  the  population  was  entirely  satisfied  with 
the  agreement,^  and  the  secretary  of  war  also  now  expressed 
the  hope  that  it  would  lead  to  peace  much  earlier  than  forced 
emigration.^  .  But  new  deeds  of  blood  on  the  part  of  the 
Indians,  treachery  on  both  sides,  and  the  wild  greed  with 
which  men  of  every  stamp  endeavored  to  get  possession  of 
the  captured  negroes,*  caused  the  war  to  break  out  again  after 
a  few  weeks,  and  fed  it  continually. 

The  war  in  Florida  had  long  been  a  pet  theme  with  the 
opposition,  and  became  so  more  and  more  every  day,  but  not 
until  the  beginning  of  1841  did  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  begin 
to  produce  the  documentary  proof  of  the  share  which  slavery 
had  in  this  robe  of  Penelope.  It  is  apparent  even  from 
this  that  the  abolitionists  were  guilty  of  exaggeration  when 

■  "3d.  Resolved,  That  it  is  insulting  to  the  feeling  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  degrading  to  our  character,  to  send  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  army  of  the  United  States  to  sue  for  peace  to  a  few  Indians, 
after  a  yrar  of  four  years,  and  in  fact  yielding  up  to  the  Indians  all  they 
have  ever  required.     .    .    . 

"  5th.  Resolved,  That  the  peninsula  of  Florida  is  the  last  place  in  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  wherein  the  Indians  should  be  permitted  to 
remain,  for  obvious  reasons:    .     .    . 

"  3d.  If  located  in  Floiida,  all  the  runaway  slaves  will  find  refuge  and 
protection  with  them. 

"4th_.  The  contiguity  of  the  emancipated  colored  population  of  the  West 
Indies,  would,  in  a  war  with  some  foreign  power,  place  Florida,  and  in 
fact  the  whole  of  our  southern  states,  in  jeopardy.  There  is  no  position  in 
which  these  Indians  could  be  located,  so  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  hap- 
piness of  the  southern,  and  interests  of  the  United  States,  as  the  peninsula 
of  Florida."    Niles.  LVI,  pp.  265,  266. 

*  See  a  letter  of  Colonel  J.  Warren  and  W.  J.  Wills  to  Macomb,  June 
15,  1839.    Niles,  LVI,  p.  289. 

»l.c. 

»0n  this  see  Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  No,  225,  pp.  30-39,  42- 
50,  81,  91,  92,  97,  98,  100-108,  110-126.  From  these  documents  it  is  evi- 
dent that  there  were  not  wanting  officers  who  energetically  opposed  theao 
disgraceful  doings. 


VAN  BUBEN  AND  THE  WAB.  311 

they  now  endeavored  more  and  more  to  make  it  seem  that 
the  specific  interests  of  the  slaveholders  were  the  only  cause 
of  the  war  and  of  its  continual  renewal.  "We  have  had  proof 
enough  that  if  this  were  really  the  case,  the  numbers,  vigi- 
lance and  courage  of  the  foes  of  slavery  was  great  enough, 
both  in  congress  and  out  of  it,  to  discover  it  and  denounce 
it  sooner.  Not  only  Jackson  but  Yan  Buren  did  not,  in 
this  case,  play  a  secret  game  with  such  refinement  of  skill 
that  the  whole  people  allowed  themselves  to  be  deceived  a3 
to  its  character  and  its  aim.  It  must  have  awakened  the 
greatest  anxiety  and  apprehension  that  all  that  the  adminis- 
tration and  its  subordinates  had  done  here  in  the  service  of 
the  slaveholders  had  been  looked  upon  by  them  entirely  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  that  more  than  a  suflicieut  portion 
of  the  documents  in  question  could  have  been  exposed  to  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  people  several  years  before  there  was  even 
one  person  to  be  found  who  read  them  with  a  proper  under- 
standing of  their  meaning.  This  makes  the  Florida  war, 
in  a  certain  respect,  the  extreme  point  which  the  demoral- 
izing influence  of  slavery  reached.  It  is  the  strongest  but 
also  the  last  illustration  of  the  truth  that,  under  the  pressure 
of  custom,  even  the  instincts  of  the  people  towards  slavery 
had  begun  to  be  blunted.  The'slavocracy  had  dragged  the 
Union  for  long  years  into  much  greater  humiliations  and 
much  more  grievous  sins,  but  never  again  was  it  able  to  move 
even  a  finger  of  its  unholy  hand,  without  drawing  down  on 
it  immediately  the  most  energetic  denunciations  of  the 
minority  of  the  north. 

If  Van  Buren  is  not  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  tool  of  the 
slavocracy  in  relation  to  the  Seminole  war,  and  in  the  sense 
alleged  by  the  abolitionists,  the  cause  is  not  to  be  sought  for 
in  the  uprightness  of  his  intentions.  Wherever  an  oppor- 
tunity offered,  he,  with  full  consciousness,  never  hesitated  to 
degrade  the  Union  to  its  service. 


312  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

Negotiations  with  England  in  relation  to  claims  for  dam- 
ages by  some  slaveholders,  had  been  pending  since  the  year 
1830.  On  the  25th  of  January,  1840,  a  message  of  the 
president  announced  that  England  had  declared  herself  pre- 
pared to  pay  £23,500.^  The  satisfaction  which  this  news 
must  have  aflbrded  the  south  was  more  than  balanced  by  the 
communication  made  at  the  same  time  that  that  sum  was 
granted  to  cover  two  or  three  claims  only,  and  that  in  the 
future  all  such  claims  would  be  refused. 

The  history  of  these  claims  is  briefly  as  follows:  The  ship 
Comet,  during  a  voyage  from  the  District  of  Columbia  to 
New  Orleans,  in  1830,  was  wrecked  on  the  Bahama  Islands. 
Wreckers  brought,  together  with  the  other  persons,  the  slaves 
who  were  found  on  board  into  the  harbor  of  Nassau,  where 
the  Enoflish  authorities  declared  the  slaves  free.  A  case  sim- 
ilar  in  all  essential  respects  happened  at  the  same  place  to 
the  ship  Encomium,  in  1834.  During  the  following  year, 
the  authorities  of  Port  Hamilton  acted  in  the  same  way  with 
the  slaves  on  the  ship  Enterprise,  which  was  compelled  to 
run  into  the  harbor  by  stress  of  weather.  England  finally 
allowed  some  compensation  to  be  wrung  from  her  in  the  first 
two  cases,  but  refused  it  absolutely  in  the  third.  The  con- 
trolling difference  between*  them  was  that  the  latter  had 
happened  after,  and  the  former  before,  the  emancipation  of 
slaves  in  her  West  Indian  possessions  had  taken  place. 
Calhoun  endeavored,  in  a  long  speech  in  the  senate,  to  prove 
that  England  had  thus  not  only  contradicted  herself,  but  liad 
also  became  guilty  of  a  crying  violation  of  international  law.^ 
Not  a  single  vote  was  cast  against  the  resolutions  in  which 
he  had  laid  down  his  own  views  on  the  provisions  of  the  law 
of  nations  which  came  into  consideration  here.'    The  south 

»Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  50. 

•Calh.'s  Works,  III,  pp.  462  seq. 

•The  resolutions  were  altered  somewhat  by  the  committee  on  foreign 


palmeeston's  language.  313 ' 

endeavored,  on  many  occasions  afterwards,  to  make  capital 
out  of  this  unanimity.^  As  a  symptom  of  how  wanting  the 
representatives  of  the  north  were  in  backbone,  this  unanim- 
ity was  certainly  of  importance,  but  otherwise  by  no  means 
as  imposing  as  the  south  wished  to  have  believed.  Clay 
showed  how  Palmerston's  language  did  not  even  permit  the 
resumption  of  negotiations;  that  the  resolutions  were  there- 
fore aimless,  unless  it  was  desired  to  compel  the  recognition 
of  the  principles  expressed  in  them  by  war,  but  that  pru- 
dence required  that  the  world  should  not  be  too  frequently 
importuned  with  the  slavery  question.^  Calhoun  avoided 
giving  a  direct  answer  to  this  argument,  although  he 
foresaw  the  worst  consequences,  unless  England  came  to  a 
better  judgment.'  Porter,  of  Louisiana,  went  still  farther 
than  Clay.  He  contested  not  only  the  expediency  of  the 
resolutions,  but  also  doubted  their  justness.  He,  indeed, 
found  no  support,  but  there  was  evidently  no  lack  of  those 
who  shared  his  opinion,  for  of  fifty-two  senators  only  thirty- 
three  voted.'' 

affairs,  but  not  in  the  point  most  material  here.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV, 
p.  113. 

'  Benton  says:  "  This  was  one  of  the  occasions  on  which  the  mind  loves 
to  dwell,  when,  on  a  question  purely  sectional  and  southern,  and  wholly  in 
the  interest  of  slave  property,  there  was  no  division  of  sentiment  in  the 
American  senate."    Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  183. 

»Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  pp.  114,  115; 

' "  I  also  beUeve  that  justice  has  been  withheld  on  grounds  utterly  un- 
tenable, and  which,  if  persisted  in,  must  lead,  in  the  end,  to  the  avowal  of 
a  principle,  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  that  must  strike  a  fatal  blow  at 
the  peace  of  the  two  countries;  and,  in  its  reaction,  on  the  social  and  po- 
litical condition  of  Great  Britain  and  the  rest  of  Europe."  Calh.'s  Works, 
III,  p.  486. 

*  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  118.  When  IngersoU,  of  Pennsylvania,  laid 
stress  on  the  unanimity  of  the  vote  in  the  house  of  representatives,  some  years 
later,  Giddings  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  nineteen  senators  had  not 
voted.  I ngersoll  answered:  "They  were  all  present."  Giddings  replied: 
"I  feel  humbled  under  the  allusion  of  the  gentleman."  Giddings 
Sp.,  p.  88. 


314  Jackson's  ai>mintsteation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Claj  was  unquestionably  right:  Calhoun  did  his  own 
cause  a  poor  service.  It  must  have  awakened  peculiar  re- 
flections to  see  such  resolutions  "  unanimously  "  adopted,  be- 
cause over  a  third  of  the  senators  sat  with  closed  mouths, 
while  England  roundly  rejected  the  claims  of  the  slavocracy. 
It  must  have  awakened  peculiar  reflections  to  see  this  slav- 
ocracy which  had  really,  hitherto,  not  shown  itself  weak  of 
anxious,  opposing  idle  words  to  England's  revolting  injustice, 
back  of  which  there  was  absolutely  nothing.  If  England's 
decision  "interdicted  nearly  as  effectually  the  intercourse 
by  sea  between  one-half  of  this  Union  and  the  other,  as  to 
the  greatest  and  most  valuable  portion  of  the  property  of  the 
south,  as  if  she  was  to  send  out  cruisers  against  it " — if  there 
was  question  of  a  "  vital  principle  "  for  the  south,  *  was  this 
enough?^  Either  this  was  a  serious  exaggeration,  or  the 
right  was  not  very  certain.  Both  might  be  the  case;  but 
the  very  fact  that  compensation  for,  and  not  the  surren- 
der of,  the  slaves  was  demanded,  must  have  awakened  doubt 
as  to  the  justice  of  the  claim.  It  was  unquestionably  cer- 
tain that  England  would  never  have  acceded  to  such  a  de- 
mand. But  if  the  United  States  thought  that  they  must 
look  on  the  moral  convictions  of  the  English  people  as  such 
a  power,  that  they  renounced  such  a  demand  from  the  start, 
how  important  did  not  Clay's  warning  against  the  indis- 
creet importuning  of  the  rest  of  the  world  with  the  slavery 
question  seem?  And  if  the  right  was  not  so  undoubted, 
that  those  most  nearly  interested  had  ventured  to  express 
only  the  wish  that  further  steps  should  be  taken  to  enforce 
their  claim;  and  if  the  moral  convictions  of  the  western 
world  in  relation  to  slavery  were  recognized,  even  by  the 
slavocrats,  as  a  power  to  such  an  extent;  in  what  light  did 
the  stubborn,  emphatic  insisting  of  the  administration  on 
compensation  appear? 

•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  115.         •  Calk's  Works,  UI,  p.  486. 


ANDREW  STEVENSOK.  315 

Calhoun  did  not  reproach  the  president  in  the  slightest, 
and  it  could  not  be  said  of  him  nor  of  anj  other  federal 
officer  who  had  carried  on  the  negotiations,  that  he  had 
not  done  his  best  to  satisfy  the  south.  Even  when  secre- 
tary of  state,  Yan  Buren  had  designated  this  affair  as  "  the 
most  immediately  pressing"  business  of  the  embassy  at 
London.^  Later,  the  ambassador,  Andrew  Stevenson,  of  Vir- 
ginia, adduced  —  either  from  mala  Jides  or  culpable  ignor- 
ance —  obvious  untruths,  which  were,  perhaps,  not  without 
their  influence  in  causing  England  finally  to  grant  compen- 
sation for  the  slaves  on  the  Comet  and  Encomium.'' 

"We  have  not  here  to  inquire  whether  this  assumption  is 
of  importance  in  relation  to  the  objection  raised  by  Calhoun, 
that  England  was  inconsistent  with  herself,  nor  whether  this 
reproach  had  any  foundation.  Neither  have  we  to  examine 
the  general  maxims  of  international  law.  The  only  question 
which  has  any  importance  for  us  is,  whether  the  principles 

'  Giddings,  Speeches,  p.  41. 

'  He  writes,  in  December,  1836,  to  Palmerston:  "  TTie  undersigned  feds 
assored  that  it  will  only  be  necessary  to  refer  Lord  Palmerston  to  the  pro- 
visions of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  the  laws  of  many  of 
the  states,  to  satisfy  him  of  the  existence  of  slavery,  and  that  slaves  are 
regarded  and  protected  as  property;  that  by  these  laws  there  is,  in  fact, 
no  distinction  in  principle  between  property  in  persons  and  property  in 
things;  and  that  the  government  have  more  than  once,  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  determined  that  slaves  killed  in  the  service  of  the  United  States, 
even  in  a  state  of  war,  were  to  be  regarded  as  property  and  not  as  persons, 
and  the  government  held  responsible  for  their  value."  Giddings  remarked 
in  answer  thereto,  in  1843,  in  the  house  of  representatives,  that  he,  as 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  claims,  had  to  subject  the  assertion  to  a 
close  examination,  and  that  he  found  it  to  be  wholly  untrue.  "These 
records  [of  this  body  and  the  treasury  department]  show  that,  in  every 
instance  where  application  for  such  payment  was  made,  the  claim  has  been 
refused."  Sp.,  p.  42.  The  correctness  of  this  assertion  was  questioned  by 
no  one.  Slade  had  abready,  in  his  great  speech  of  the  18th  and  20th  of 
January,  1840,  called  attention  to  the  fact,  and  gave  an  exhaustive  expo- 
sition of  its  history.    Niles,  LXI,  pp.  137,  138. 


316  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

of  international  law,  applicable,  under  such  circumstances,  to 
other  property,  were  also  to  be  applied  to  slaves. 

One  would  think  that  it  scarcely  needed  to  be  now  ex- 
pressly said,  for  the  first  time,  that  when  the  claim  to  a  right 
is  to  be  established  by  the  law  of  nations,  tlie  international 
law  in  force  at  the  time,  and  not  that  of  some  former  jjeriod, 
should  be  kept  in  view.^  But  this  very  thing  both  Calhoun 
and  the  senate  overlooked.* 

We  may  properly  raise  the  question  whether,  at  the  time, 

'  "  This  law  is  mutable,  as  every  other  rule  resting  on  human  authority. 
And  a  tribunal  determining  to-day  what  is  property  by  the  law  of  nations, 
is  bound  to  take  the  law  of  nations  of  to-day,  not  that  of  some  previous 
generation  or  previous  centmy.  It  is  a  rule  which  depends  for  its  judicial 
force,  or  for  its  acceptance  as  a  judicial  rule,  not  on  the  opinion  of  by -gone 
nations  and  states,  however  powerful,  or  however  wide  their  dominion  or 
the  fame  of  th'?ir  arts,  their  arms,  or  their  jurisprudence,  but  on  the  pres- 
ently continuing  assent  of  legislating  nations."  Hurd,  The  Law  of  Free- 
dom and  Bondage,  1,  p.  568,  §  517. 

*  Calhoun  contemplated  the  possibility  that  England  might  declare 
slavery  to  be  against  the  law  of  nations,  and  admitted  that  in  such  case 
the  "  act  of  abolishing  slavery  [in  her  West  Indian  possessions]  can  have 
the  force  she  attributes  to  it."  On  this  possibility  he  expresses  himself  in 
the  following  manner:  "  It  would  require,  in  the  first  place,  no  small 
share  of  effrontery  for  a  nation  which  has  been  the  greatest  slave  dealer 
on  earth;  a  nation  which  has  dragged  a  greater  number  of  Africans  from 
their  native  shores  to  people  her  possessions  and  to  sell  to  others,  and 
which  forced  our  ancestors  to  purchase  slaves  from  her  against  their  re- 
monstrance, while  colonies.  ...  It  would,  I  repeat,  requii-e  no  small 
eflBx»ntery  to  turn  around  and  declare  that  she  neither  had  nor  could  have 
the  right  to  the  property  she  sold  us,  nor  could  we,  without  deep  crime, 
retain  possession.  W6  all  know  what  such  conduct  would  be  called  among 
individuals,  unless,  indeed,  followed  by  a  tender  back  of  the  purchase 
money,  with  an  ample  compensation  for  damages;  and  there  is  no  good 
reason  why  it  should  be  called  by  a  less  harsh  epithet  when  applied  to  the 
conduct  of  nations."  Calh.'s  Works,  III,  pp.  476,  477.  According  to  this, 
England  would  be  compelled  to  recognize  slavery  as  an  institution  stand- 
ing under  the  protection  of  the  law  of  nations,  as  long  as  it  existed  any- 
where. This  is  a  strong  iUustration  of  how  slavery  endeavored  to  oppose 
on  principle  the  ad«ninces  of  progressive  development. 


THE  8LAVEBT  QUESTION.  317 

there  was  any  international  law  relating  to  slavery.  Tliis 
much  is  unquestionable,  that  for  several  decades  it  was  in 
process  of  far-reaching  transformation.^  Numerous  treaties 
had  overthro^vn  the  principles  which  applied  universally  in 
the  eighteenth  century  to  the  importation  of  slaves  from 
Africa,  and  the  United  States  boasted  of  the  important  part 
which  they  claimed  in  this  advance.     Even  the  dullest  mind 

'  The  celebrated  decision  of  the  supreme  coort  of  the  United  States  (1825) 
in  the  case  of  the  Antelope:  "That  trade  [the  slave  trade]  could  not  be 
considered  as  contrary  to  the  law  of  nations  which  was  [!  not  is]  author- 
ized and  protected  by  the  laws  of  all  commercial  nations,"  is  not  in  con- 
flict with  the  view  expressed  in  the  text.  Rather  do  the  further  declara- 
tions of  the  court  confirm  it.  We  read:  "  That  the  course  of  opinion  on 
the  slave  trade  should  be  unsettled,  ought  to  excite  no  surprise.  .  .  . 
The  course  of  unexamined  opinion  which  was  founded  on  this  inveterate 
usage,  received  its  first  check  in  America  .  .  .  the  general  sentiment 
(in  England)  was  at  length  roused  against  it,  and  the  feelings  of  justice 
and  humanity,  regaining  their  long  lost  ascendancy,  prevailed  so  far  in  the 
British  parUament  as  to  obtain  an  act  for  its  abohtion.  The  utmost  efforts 
of  the  British  government,  as  well  as  that  of  the  United  States,  have  since 
been  assiduously  employed  in  its  suppression.  It  has  been  denounced  by 
both  in  terms  of  great  severity,  and  those  concerned  in  it  are  subjected  to 
the  severest  penalties  which  law  can  inflict.  In  addition  to  these  measures 
operating  on  their  own  people,  they  have  used  all  their  influence  to  bring 
other  nations  into  the  same  system,  and  to  interdict  this  trade  by  the  con- 
sent of  all. 

"  Public  sentiment  has,  in  both  countries,  kept  pace  with  the  measures  of 
government;  and  the  opinion  is  extensively,  if  not  universally  entertained, 
that  this  unnatural  traffic  ought  to  be  suppressed.  While  its  illegality  is 
asserted  by  some  governments,  but  not  admitted  by  all,  while  the  detesta- 
tion in  which  it  is  held  is  growing  daily,  and  even  those  nations  who  tole- 
rate it  in  fact,  almost  disavow  their  own  conduct,  and  rather  connive  at 
than  legalize  the  acts  of  their  subjects,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  public  feel- 
ing should  march  somewhat  in  advsuice  of  strict  law,  and  that  opposite 
opinions  should  be  entertained  on  the  precise  cases  in  which  our  own  laws 
may  control  and  Umit  the  practice  of  others.  Indeed,  we  ought  not  to  be 
surprised,  if,  on  this  novel  series  of  cases,  even  courts  of  justice  should,  in 
some  instances,  have  carried  the  principle  of  suppression  further  than  a 
more  deliberate  consideration  of  the  subject  would  justify."  Wheaton's 
Rep.,  X,  pp.  114-116;  Curtis,  VI,  pp.  340,  341. 


318  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

must  have  seen  that  a  principle  was  thus  asserted  by  the 
controlling  states  of  the  western  civilized  world,  the  consist- 
ent following  of  which  would  necessarily  lead  to  the  com- 
plete abolition  of  slavery.  We  have  heard  how  uncondition- 
ally this  was  recognized  precisely  in  the  United  States.  The 
south  even  wished,  up  to  and  during  the  third  decade  of  this 
century,  to  have  it  believed  that  it  hoped  for  and  expected 
the  gradual  extinction  of  slavery  with  much  greater  confi- 
dence from  the  prohibition  of  the  importation  of  slaves,  than 
was  ever  really  the  Ciise.  And  although,  in  the  United  States 
also,  a  counter-current  of  immense  force  had  set  in,  yet  the 
agitation  against  slavery  steadily  increased,  that  is,  a  growing 
minority  there  pursued  energetically  the  course  entered  upon 
by  the  prohibition  of  the  African  slave  trade.  England,  of 
all  the  nations  directly  interested  to  a  great  extent  in  the 
question,  proceeded  most  rapidly  on  this  road.  "When  Cal- 
houn held  before  her  the  condition  of  things  in  Malabar  and 
Hindoostan,  he  only  showed  that  the  goal  was  yet  far  dis- 
tant, but  did  not  prove  that  she  had  no  right  to  allow  the 
great  step  in  advance  which  she  had  taken  in  the  West 
Indies  to  have  a  determining  influence  on  what  she  would 
henceforth  recognize  as  the  law  of  nations  in  this  matter. 
A  transition  stage  had  been  reached,  one  which  could  not  be 
permanently  continued  in,  and  England  began  to  advance 
farther  in  the  direction  of  the  tendency  already  universally 
adopted.  As  she  had  the  most  extensive  colonial  posses- 
sions, distributed  over  the  whole  earth,  and  was  the  greatest 
maritime  power,  and  as,  further,  many  of  the  great  powers 
had  no  material  interest  not  to  accede  immediately  and  read- 
ily to  the  principle  which  she  had  asserted,  there  was  no 
doubt  that  she  would,  in  time,  draw  all  the  other  nations 
after  her.  It  might  be  a  long  time  before  that  principle 
would  be  so  generally  recognized  that  it  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  principle  of  international  law;  but  it  was  certain 


INTEENATIONAL  LAW  AND  BLAVEET.        319 

that  the  claim  raised  by  Calhoun  and  the  senate  would  never 
again  be  considered  an  international  obligation  after  England 
had  contested  its  character  as  such.  The  clear  recognition  of 
this  was  the  reason  why  even  Calhoun  could  oppose  to 
England's  absolute  refusal  nothing  but  a  few  impotent  reso- 
lutions. The  necessary  preservation  of  the  principle  by 
which  he  justified  their  introduction  could  have  only  one 
result  —  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  north  gradually  to  the  truth 
that  the  specific  interests  of  the  slavocracy  threatened  to  keep 
the  Union  in  the  "  law  of  nations  "  of  ages  irrevocably  gone, 
while,  under  the  influence  of  the  moral  consciousness  of  the 
time,  a  nesv  law  of  nations  was  being  developed  for  the  rest 
of  the  western  civilized  world. 

Calhoun  had  admitted  that  England  would  not  have  been 
obliged  to  make  any  compensation,  were  it  not  that  the 
Enterprise  was  driven  by  necessity  into  a  place  where 
England  had  jurisdiction.^  The  resolutions  claimed  only  that 
a  ship  driven  by  "  unavoidable  cause  "  into  the  harbor  of  a 
friendly  power,  preserved  all  the  rights  to  which  it  was  en- 
titled on  the  high  seas;  that,  in  such  a  case,  the  pei'sonal 
legal  relation  established  "  by  the  laws  "  between  the  persons 
on  board,  were  under  the  protection  of  the  friendly  power. 
This  miglit  be  right  or  not,  but  evidently  it  was  not  a  foun- 
dation for  the  claim  raised.  The  "  exclusive  jurisdiction  " 
under  which  the  Enterprise  was  on  the  high  seas,  was  un- 
questionably that  of  the  United  States,  for  she  sailed  under 
the  flag  of  the  United  States;  since  the  individual  states  in 
relation  to  all  foreign  countries  have  no  flag.  Hence,  accord- 
in  <y  to  Calhoun's  principle  and  the  senate's,  England  had  to 

'  On  the  side  of  England  the  principle  was  asserted:  "  The  negroes  on 
board  the  Enterprise  had,  by  entering  within  the  English  jurisdiction,  ac- 
quire-d  rights  which  the  local  courts  were  bound  to  protect."  In  answer  to 
tiuE,  Calhoun  remarks:  "  Such  certainly  would  have  been  the  case  if  they 
had  been  brought  in,  or  entered  voluntarily ."    Works,  HI,  p.  469. 


320     JAOKSON's  AJ)MINT8TRATI0N ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

protect  only  the  personal  relations  "  established  "  by  the  fed- 
eral laws  between  the  persons  on  board.  -But  slavery  was  not 
"established  "  by  the  Union, but  by  the  several  states.  The 
constitution  of  the  Union  only  recognized  this  "  peculiar  " 
institution  of  a  part  of  the  states  as  legally  binding  through- 
out the  Union.  The  federal  constitution  made  it  the  obli- 
gation of  the  Union  to  look  upon  the  slaves  as  slaves,  only  so 
long  as  they  were  found  in  a  part  of  the  Union  by  the  mu- 
nicipal law  of  which  they  were  slaves,  or  when  they  had  fled 
from  a  slave  state  into  other  states  and  their  surrender  was 
demanded.  It  is  another  question  whether  the  rights  of  the 
Federal  government  in  this  respect  exceeded  its  constitu- 
tional obligations.  Congress  had  permitted  the^ranspor- 
tation  of  slaves  by  sea  in  ships  of  not  less  than  forty  tons* 
capacity,  from  one  harbor  of  the  United  States  to  another. 
It  might  have  been  said  —  and  it  was  frequently  said  on 
other  occasions — that  the  Federal  government  had  thus  un- 
dertaken the  obligation  to  defend  the  rights  of  the  owners  of 
the  slaves  when  such  a  ship  was  driven  by  stress  of  weather 
out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States.  This  conclusion 
is,  in  my  opinion,  indisputable.  I  mean  only  that  oiie  should 
not  stop  at  it,  but  from  this  conclusion  draw  the  further  one, 
that  congress  not  only  had  the  right,  but  that  it  was  its 
duty,  to  prohibit  the  transportation  of  slaves  by  sea.  The 
assuming  of  that  obligation  led,  as  the  case  in  controversy 
showed,  to  this,  that  the  United  States  had,  as  regards 
foreign  powers,  to  declare  certain  persons  slaves  under  con- 
ditions in  which  the  constitution  did  not  bind  them  to  con- 
sider them  slaves;  that  is,  by  the  assumption  of  that  obli- 
gation the  slave  territory  was,  by  a  federal  law,  extended  to 
the  ships  in  question.  But  the  south  has  not  only  never 
been  able  to  name  a  provision  of  the  constitution  in  which 
congress  was  granted  the  right  thus  to  extend  the  slave  ter- 
ritory, but  it  even  wished,  in  the  struggle  over  the  territorial 


INTEKNAllONAIi   LAW   AND   SLAVERY.  321 

question,  to  prove  the  want  of  power  in  congress  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  territories,  by  the  argnment  that  this  right 
would  dniw  after  it,  as  a  consequence,  the  opposed  right 
which  unquestionably  did  not  belong  to  it,  to  introduce  and 
order  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  territories  or  anywhere 
else.  Hence,  the  equitable  consideration  that  the  whole 
Union  would  be  compelled  continually  to  expect  to  see  itself 
entangled  in  painful,  and  perhaps  threatening,  complica- 
tions and  proceedings,  did  not  need  to  be  even  suggested. 

But,  however,  the  matter  was  not  so  simple  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  understand  how  even  to-day  one  could,  in 
good  faith,  come  to  a  different  conclusion  in  regard  to  the 
constitutional  question.  And  if  this  be  true  now,  it  was 
incomparably  truer  then,  as,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  it 
was  simply  impossible  for  any  American  to  examine  such  a 
question  free  from  preconceived  opinions  and  entirely  in- 
dependent of  personal  feeling.  Hence,  we  should  not,  with- 
out any  more  ado,  question  that  Van  Buren  and  the  north- 
ern senators  who  agreed  with  Calhoun  were  honestly  con- 
vinced that  they  had  only^done  their  duty  in  this  case.  But, 
so  far  as  the  administration  is  concerned,  it  may  be  defi- 
nitely said  that  it  did  not  go  beyond  what  it  assumed  to 
be  its  duty,only  because  no  practical  possibility  was  afforded 
it  to  go  further.  At  the  same  time,  it  strained  its  influence 
to  the  utmost  in  the  service  of  the  slavocracy  in  a  case  in 
which  only  the  boldest  sophistry  could  discover  the  shadow 
of  an  obligation,  and  in  which  there  was  no  question  what- 
ever of  a  direct  material  interest  of  persons  belonging  to  the 
United  States. 

On  the  26th  of  August,  1839,  Lieutenant  Gedney,  com- 
mander of  the  United  States  brig  Washington,  observed  a 
"  suspicious  "  ship  not  far  from  CuUoden  Point,  Long  Island.' 
The  boat  which  he  dispatched  after  it  found  the  ship  in  the 

*  See  the  official  report,  Niles,  LVn,  p.  28. 
21 


322  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

possession  of  negroes.  Besides  the  latter,  there  were  two 
whites  on  board,  Jose  Ruiz  and  Pedro  Montez,  from  whose 
account  the  following  facts  were  gleaned:  On  the  27th  of 
June,  the  schooner  L'Amistad  had  left  the  harbor  of  Havana, 
with  the  intention  of  sailing  for  Guanaja,  Puerto  Principe. 
After  some  days,  the  negroes,  who  were  designated,  in  a  pass- 
port signed  by  the  governor  of  Cuba,  as  the  slaves  of  Puiz 
and  Montez,  revolted,  killed  the  captain  and  three  other 
whites,  and  directed  Puiz  and  Montez  to  steer  the  ship  in 
the  direction  of  Africa.  The  latter  had  succeeded  in  deceiv- 
ing the  negroes  during  the  night  about  the  course  of  the 
ship,  and  in  this  way  in  bringing  it  gradually  to  the  coast 
of  Long  Island.  On  hearing  this  account,  Lieutenant  Ged- 
ney  took  possession,  as  a  "  prize,"  not  only  of  the  ship  and 
of  the  negroes  on  board  it,  but  also  of  the  negroes  who  had 
gone  on  land,  and  who  were  therefore  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  state  of  New  York,  and  brought  the  L'Amistad,  with 
its  whole  "  cargo,"  to  New  London,  Connecticut.  The  case 
which  was  here  carried  on  before  the  federal  courts  was  ex- 
tremely complicated:  Gedney  and  his  associates  claimed 
salvage  money,  Puiz  and  Montez  demanded  the  negroes,  the 
negroes  brought  action  against  the  Spaniards,  the  adminis- 
tration urged  the  surrender  of  the  ship,  together  with  the 
negroes,  to  the  Spanish  ambassador,  etc.  We  are  here  con- 
cerned only  with  the  course  pursued  in  the  matter  by  the 
administration. 

The  district  attorney  of  Connecticut  informed  the  secre- 
tary of  state,  Forsyth,  of  Georgia,  that  the  Spanish  repre- 
sentative had  demanded  the  giving  up  of  "the  ship,  the 
cargo  and  the  blacks,"  and  was  directed  to  take  care  that  they 
should  not  be  placed  beyond  the  control  of  the  executive  by 
the  court.^     On  the  24:th  of  September,  the  attorney  general, 

•The  district  attorney  writes,  on  the  9th  of  September:  "  I  would  re- 
gpectfully  inquire,  sir,  whether  there  axe  no  treaty  stipulations  with  the 


THE   l'aMISTAD   CASE.  323 

Felix  Grundy,  of  Tennessee,  received  an  order  to  give  his 
official  opinion  on  the  case,^  whereas  the  trial  had  been  begun 
as  early  as  the  17th,  in  Hartford,^  and  a  first  decision  had  been 
rendered  by  Judge  Thompson  on  the  23d.^  Grundy  did  not 
obey  the  order  until  November.  His  opinion  was  to  the 
efiect  that  the  ship,  cargo  and  negroes  should  be  surrendered 
without  subjecting  the  question  whether  they  were  the  prop- 
erty of  Spanish  subjects  to  a  judicial  decision,  since  the 
United  States  had  not  the  right  to  examine  into  the  correct- 
ness of  the  facts  stated  in  Spanish  documents ;  *  that  the  pres- 

govemment  of  Spain  that  would  authorize  ( !)  our  government  to  deliver 
them  up  to  the  Spanish  authorities,  and  if  so,  whether  it  could  be  done  be- 
fore our  court  sits  ? ' '  Forsyth  answered,  on  the  11th  of  September :  "  Mr. 
Calderon's  application  will  be  immediately  transmitted  to  the  president, 
for  his  decision  upon  it.  .  .  .  In  the  meantime,  you  will  take  care  that 
no  proceeding  of  your  circuit  court,  or  of  any  other  judicial  tribunal,  places 
the  vessel,  cargo  or  slaves  beyond  the  control  of  the  federal  executive." 
Argument  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  pp.  11,  12.  The  secretary  of  state,  therefore, 
evidently  shares  the  desire  of  the  district  attorney  that  a  treaty-provision 
might  be  discovered  which  would  justify  the  immediate  surrender  of  the 
negroes  without  any  judicial  decree,  and  he  looks  upon  it  from  the  very 
6rst  as  a  fact  that  the  negroes  are  slaves. 

>  Op.  of  the  Att.  Gen.,  Ill,  p.  484. 

« Niles,  LVII,  p.  29. 

"  Ibid.,  p.  75. 

*  "  In  the  intercourse  and  transactions  between  nations,  it  has  been  found 
indispensable  that  due  faith  and  credit  should  be  given  by  each  to  the  oflB- 
cial  acts  of  the  public  functionaries  of  others.  Hence  the  sentences  of  prize 
courts  under  the  law  of  nations,  or  admiralty  and  exchequer,  or  other  rev- 
enue courts  under  the  municipal  law,  are  considered  as  conclusive,  as  to 
the  proprietary  interest  in,  and  title  to,  the  thing  in  question;  noir  can  the 
same  be  examined  into  in  the  judicial  tribunals  of  another  country.  Nor 
is  this  confined  to  judicial  proceedings.  The  acts  of  other  oflScers  of  a 
foreign  nation,  in  the  discharge  of  their  ordinary  duties,  are  entitled  to  the 
like  respect.  ...  I  cannot  see  any  legal  principle  upon  which  the 
government  of  the  United  States  would  be  authorized  to  go  into  an  investi- 
gation for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether  the  fexjts  stated  in  those 
papers  by  the  Spanish  officers  are  true  or  not."  Op.  of  the  Att.  Gen., 
Ill,  pp.  486,  486. 


324  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ident  should  advise  the  marshal,  in  whose  care  the  ship  and 
cargo  were,  to  give  them  over  to  the  persons  authorized  by 
the  Spanish  ambassador  to  receive  them,  in  accordance  with 
the  ninth  article  of  the  treaty  with  Spain  of  the  27th  of 
October,  1795. 

This  article  nine  of  the  treaty  of  the  27th  of  October,  1795, 
treated  only  of  ships  and  goods  which  had  been  rescued  on 
the  high  seas  from  "  pirates."  ^  Hence  the  attorney  general 
of  the  United  States,  in  unison  with  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador, who  had  also  appealed  to  this  article,  looked  upon 
the  negroes  both  as  pirates  and  as  part  of  the  cargo.  Both, 
therefore,  considered  the  proof  required  by  the  treaty,  that 
the  negi'oes  were  the  "legitimate  property"  of  Ruiz  and 
Montez,  produced  in  the  passport  of  the  governor  of  Cuba, 
already  referred  to.  But  both  knew  that  the  passport  had 
been  surreptitiously  obtained,  and  the  negroes,  according  to 
the  laws  of  Spain,  were  free.  In  accordance  with  a  treaty 
concluded  with  England,  the  Spanish  government  issued  a 
decree  in  December,  1817,  which  prohibited  the  importation 
of  slaves  from  Africa  after  the  30th  of  May,  1820.  Negroes^ 
imported  in  contravention  of  the  terras  of  this  decree 
were  to  be  set  free  without  delay,  and  the  ships  in  qucs- 

'  "  Todos  los  buques  y  mercaderias  de  qaalquiera  naturaleza  que  sean, 
que  se  hubiesen  quitado  4  algunos  piratas  en  alta  mar  y  se  traxesen  &  algun 
puerto,  de  una  de  las  dos  potencias,  se  entegraran  alii  a  los  officiales  6 
empleados  en  dicho  puerto  d  fin  de  que  los  guarden  y  restituyan  integra- 
mente  a  su  verdadero  proprietario  luego  que  hiciese  constar  debida  y  ple- 
namente  que  era  su  legitima  propriedad."  Stat,  at  L.,  VIII,  p.  143.  In  the 
English  version,  the  words  "or  robbers  "  is  added  to  the  word  "  pirate," 
" plenamente  "  is  rendered  by  "sufficient,"  and  "property"  simply  is 
made  to  take  the  place  of  "legitima  propriedad,"  Of  course  of  tliem- 
selves,  the  English  version  and  the  Spanish  version  had  entirely  equal 
force.  But  in  accordance  with  the  principle  that  wherever  life  or  hberty 
is  involved,  the  person  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  liberty  must  get  the  benefit 
of  every  doubt  in  the  law,  the  stricter  Spanish  version  uhould  be  here  pre- 
ferred. 


THE  l'aMISTAD   CASE.  325 

tion  confiscated.  Ruiz  and  Montez,  indeed,  swore  that  when 
they  had  "  purchased "  the  negroes  they  did  not  know 
that  they  were  fresh  from  Africa.^  But  it  required  a  great 
deal  to  attach  faith  to  this  oath,  for  the  blacks  had  been 
shipped  only  two  months  before  fi-om  Africa,  and  did  not 
understand  a  word  of  any  European  tongue.^  Moreover,  this 
could  have  been  of  importance  only  as  regards  the  penalty 
incurred  under  the  laws  of  Spain.  According  to  these  laws, 
the  blacks  were  evidently  free;  the  butchery  of  the  captain 
and  the  crew  was  an  act  of  justifiable  necessary  self-defense, 
and  did  not  make  "  pirates  "  of  them,  much  less  a  "  com- 
modity." 

The  administration  had  become  a  party  in  the  case,  not 
only  before  it  had  received  the  opinion  of  the  attorney  gen- 
eral, but  even  before  it  had  asked  for  it.  Yet  it  did  not 
question  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court,  but  left  it  to  it,  ac- 
cording to  the  decision  it  might  reach,  to  grant  the  demand 
of  the  Spanish  ambassador,  or  to  provide  for  the  transfer  of 
the  negroes  to  Africa.  It  gave,  as  the  reason  for  its  course, 
the  demand  of  the  Spanish  ambassador;  and  the  latter  re- 
peatedly protested  that  no  court  of  the  United  States  had 
jurisdiction  in  the  case.'  In  consequence  of  this  protest, 
the  administration,  on  the  19th  of  November,  caused  the 

'  Niles,  LVII,  p.  206. 

'  The  supreme  court  says  in  its  decision:  "  Ruiz  and  Montez  are  proved 
to  have  made  the  pretended  purchase  of  these  negroes  with  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  all  the  circumstances.  And  so  cogent  and  irresistible  is  the  evi- 
dence in  this  respect,  that  the  district  attorney  has  admitted  in  open  court, 
upon  the  record,  that  these  negroes  were  native  Africans,  and  recently  im- 
ported into  Cuba."    Peters'  Rep.,  XV,  p.  593;  Curtis,  XIV,  p.  162. 

•  "  Here  [in  a  letter  from  d'Argaizof  the  5th  of  November,  1839,  to  For- 
syth] is  also  a  renewal  of  the  protest,  which  has  uniformly  been  maintained 
by  the  [Spanish]  legation,  against  the  right  of  any  court  in  this  country  to 
exercise  jurisdiction  in  the  case.  And  yet  this  suit  is  carried  on  by  tlje 
executive,  as  in  pursuance  of  a  demand  by  the  Spanish  minister."  Argu- 
ment of  J.  Q.  Adama,  p.  36. 


326   JAOKSOn's  administration ANNE3LA.TI0N  of  TEXAS. 

district  attorney  to  file  a  second  indictment,  difi*ering  from 
the  first  in  this,  that  there  was  no  longer  any  question  of  the 
alternative  of  ordering  the  carrying  of  the  negroes  over  to 
Afi'ica.  The  explanation  of  the  motive  of  this  change  is 
furnished  by  the  correspondence  between  the  secretary  of 
state  and  the  Spanish  ambassador.  In  tones  of  injured  in- 
nocence and  unappreciated  virtue,  Forsyth  reminds  the  am- 
bassador that  the  executive  and  the  courts  had  taken  sides 
with  Euiz  and  Montez  from  the  beginning,^  That  these 
gentlemen  had  had  to  endure  some  unpleasantness,  because 
of  a  civil  suit  instituted  against  them,  could  not  have  been 
prevented.  How  greatly  the  administration  lamented  this, 
appeared  clearly  enough  from  the  fact  that  it  had  appointed 
the  district  attorney  legal  counsel  to  Ruiz.^  The  magna- 
nimity of  the  administration,  however,  went  fartlier  yet. 
Spite  of  the  ingratitude  which  it  had  received  from  the 
Spanish  ambassador,  it  continued  to  labor  with  increased 
energy  to  deliver  the  unfortunate  black  game  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemies.  A  United  States  ship  was  kept 
in  readiness  to  take  the  negroes  to  Cuba,  as  soon  as  the  "  an- 

'  "  The  undersigned  cannot  conclude  this  communication  without  calling 
the  attention  of  the  Chevalier  d'Argaiz  to  the  fact,  that  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  vexatious  detention  to  which  Messrs.  Montez  and  Ruiz 
have  been  subjected  in  consequence  of  the  civil  suit  instituted  against  them, 
all  the  proceedings  in  the  matter,  on  the  part  both  of  the  executive  and 
the  judicial  branches  of  the  government,  have  had  their  foundation  in  the 
assumption  (!)  that  these  persons  alone  (!)  were  the  parties  aggrieved;  and 
that  their  claims  to  the  surrender  of  the  property  was  founded  in  fact  and 
injustice."    Forsyth  to  D  Argaiz,  December  13,  1839;  Ibid.,  pp.  29,  30. 

'Forsyth  to  D'Argaiz:  "The  oflfer  made  to  that  person  (Ruiz)  of  the 
advice  and  assistance  of  the  district  attorney,  was  a  favor  —  an  entirely 
gratuitous  one  —  since  it  was  not  the  province  of  the  United  States  ( !)  to 
interfere  in  a  private  htigation  between  subjects  of  a  foreign  state."  Ibid., 
p.  50.  The  order  was  doubtless  very  agreeable  to  Holabird,  for  he  writes 
on  the  21st  of  September,  1839:  "  I  should  extremely  regret  that  the  ras- 
cally blacks  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  abolitionists,  with  whon 
Hartford  is  filled,"    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  398. 


THK  l'AMISTAD   CASE.  327 

ticipated  "  order  of  the  court  made  it  possible.*  The  naval 
officers  wlio  had  seized  the  Amistad  were  to  go  with  them 
as  witnesses.  Profound  silence  was  commanded  to  be  ob- 
served on  these  orders,  to  the  end  that  no  one  miglit  find 
time  to  interfere  with  their  execution.'  The  district  attorney 
was  instructed  not  to  delay  it  oat  of  regard  for  a  possible 
appeal.' 

The  district  court  did  not  meet  the  expectations  of  the 
administration,  and  the  district  attorney  appealed  to  the 
circuit  court.  Failing  here,  also,  the  administration  brought 
the  matter  before  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States.* 

'"The  Spanish  minister  having  applied  to  this  [state]  department  for 
the  use  of  a  vessel  of  the  United  States,  in  the  event  of  the  decision  of  the 
circuit  court  in  the  case  of  the  Amistad  being  favorable  to  his  former  appli- 
cation, to  convey  the  negroes  to  Cuba,  for  the  purpose  of  being  deUvered 
over  to  the  authorities  of  that  island,  the  president  has,  agreebly  to  your 
suggestion,  taken  in  connection  with  the  request  of  the  Spanish  minister, 
ordered  a  vessel  to  be  in  readiness  to  receive  the  negroes  from  the  custody 
of  the  marshal  as  soon  as  their  deUvery  shall  have  been  ordered  by  the 
court."  Forsyth  to  the  District  Attorney,  January  6, 1840;  Argument  of  J. 
Q.  Adams,  p.  65. 

»  "  The  vessel  destined  to  convey  the  negroes  of  the  Amistad  to  Cuba,  to 
be  ordered  to  anchor  off  the  port  of  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  as  early  as 
the  10th  of  January  next,  and  be  in  readiness  to  receive  said  negroes  from 
the  marshal  of  the  U.  S.  .  .  .  Lieutenants  Gedney  and  Meade  to  be  or- 
dered to  hold  themselves  in  readiness  to  proceed  in  the  same  vessel,  for  the 
purpose  of  affording  their  testimony  in  any  proceedings  that  may  be  ordered 
by  the  authorities  of  Cuba  in  the  matter.  These  orders  should  be  given  with 
special  instructions  that  they  are  not  to  be  communicated  to  anyone." 
Memorandum  of  the  Secretary  of  State  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Jan- 
uary 2,  1840.    Ibid.,  p.  76. 

*".  .  .  if  the  decision  of  the  court  be  such  as  is  anticipated,  the  or- 
der of  the  president  is  to  be  carried  into  execution,  unless  an  appeal  is 
actually  interposed,"  and  he  is  "  not  to  take  it  for  granted  that  it  will  be 
interposed."    Ibid.,  p.  79. 

*  "  I  inquired  of  Richard  Peters,  the  reporter  [of  the  supreme  court],  if 
there  had  ever  been  a  case  in  which  the  executive  of  the  United  States  had 
made  them  parties  to  a  suit  against  individuals  at  the  instigation  of  a  for- 
eign minister.    He  knew  but  of  one  case,  and  that  was  one  affecting  the 


.*128   JACKSON'S  ADMINISTBATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

The  eyes  of  the  whole  country  were  now  directed  with  in- 
tense gaze  to  that  body.  Every  reader  of  the  newspapers  was 
acquainted  with  the  case  of  the  Amistad  negroes,  even  in  tlie 
smallest  details.  The  organs  of  the  administration  treated  the 
matter  as  a  political  party  question,  in  which  all  the  orthodox 
were  bound  to  blindly  follow  their  leaders  through  thick  and 
thin,  but  they  met  with  decided  opposition  in  the  party  itself.* 
The  opponents  of  slavery  summoned  their  entire  strength  to 
save  the  country  from  the  disgrace  of  a  triumph  of  the  ad- 
ministration. Despite  the  burthen  of  uninterrupted  contests 
in  the  house  of  representatives,  under  which  the  old  man 
groaned,  Adams  was  induced  to  defend  the  cause  of  the 
blacks.  Imposing  are  the  timidity  and  anxiety  with  which 
he  approached  his  responsible  task,^  and  imposing  the  holy 
anger  with  which  the  much-ignored  and  much-contemned 
ex-president  accused  the  then  possessor  of  the  presidential 
chair  of  having  voluntarily  prostituted  himself  as  a  passion- 
ate advocate  of  a  piece  of  enormous  injustice,  which  would 
be  a  spot  on  the  honor  of  the  nation  that  could  not  be  wiped 
out.  His  speech,  which  lasted  eight  hours,  was  not,  by  any 
means,  a  masterpiece  of  forensic  eloquence,  but  it  was  more. 
The  patriot  tried  numberless  times  in  the  furnace  of  party 

personal  privilege  of  the  minister  himself."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p. 
404. 

•  *'  The  pamphlet  review  of  the  Amistad  case  .  .  .  was  published 
with  a  blown-bladder  puff  in  the  '  Globe '  of  the  —  instant.  It  is  known 
to  have  been  written  by  Pickens,  the  member  of  the  house  from  South  Caro- 
lina. In  the  'New  York  Evening  Post,'  an  administration  paper,  there 
was  published  an  answer  to  it,  ably  written,  by  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Jr.  1 
had  spoken  to  Mr.  Seth  M.  Gates  to  get  up  applications  to  the  editors  of 
the  '  National  Intelligencer '  and  the  '  Globe '  to  republish  the  article  in  the 
'  Evening  Post '  in  their  papers.  Mr.  Leavitt  told  me  he  had  requested  its 
pubHcation  in  both  papers,  and  had  been  refused.  I  advised  him  to  get 
the  refusal  in  writing."    Ibid.,  X,  p.  403. 

• "  0  how  shall  I  do  justice  to  this  casse  and  to  these  men?  "  Ibid.,  X, 
p.  383. 


THE  l'AMISTAD  CASE.  329 

calumny,  and  always  found  genuine,  the  last  great  represent- 
ative of  the  period  of  the  war  of  independence,  implored  the 
court  which,  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  the  fathers, 
should  be  the  rampart  of  justice  and  therefore  of  freedom,  in 
the  free  republic,  not  to  surrender  itself  to  the  unholy  spirit 
of  the  day.  And  his  hope  was  not  deceived.  The  court 
[)ronounced  its  judgment  on  the  9th  of  March,  1841;  the 
negroes  of  the  Amistad  were  free.^ 

Five  days  before,  Yan  Buren's  presidency  and  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  democratic  party  had  come  to  a  close.  Adams' 
speech  and  the  judgment  in  the  Amistad  case  were  the  part- 
ing salutations  which  accompanied  the  only  too  well  experi- 
enced "  log-roller "  into  private  life.  All  his  endeavors  to 
come  forth  from  it  again  and  enter  upon  the  great  stage  of 
political  life  were  destined  to  remain  fruitless.^ 

'  But  this  was  not  the  last  that  the  people  heard  of  the  Amistad  negroes. 
Ingersoll,  of  Pennsylvania  (! ),  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on  foreign 
affairs,  introduced  a  bill,  in  1844,  into  the  house  of  representatives,  accord- 
ing Ruiz  and  Montez  a  comi>ensation  of  $70,000.  Giddings  placed  the 
unexampled  audacity  and  baseness  of  this  motion  in  so  dear  a  light,  that 
both  bill  and  report  were  laid  on  the  table,  and  no  one  dared  to  call  them 
up  again.    Giddings,  Sp.,  pp.  73-S8. 

'  I  have  endeavored  in  this  chapter  to  relate  the  documentary  history  of 
the  slavery,  question  during  Van  Buren's  administration.  The  reader  may 
compare  the  judgment  on  this  subject  of  an  influential  fellow-actor.  Ben- 
ton writes:  "His  [Van  Buren's]  administration  was  auspicious  to  the 
general  harmony,  and  presents  a, period  of  remarkable  exemption  from 
the  sectional  bitterness  which  had  so  much  afflicted  the  Union  for  some 
years  before —  and  so  much  more  sorely  since.  Faithful  to  the  sentiments 
expressed  in  his  inaugural  address,  he  held  a  firm  and  even  course  be- 
tween sections  and  parties,  and  passed  through  his  term  Mathout  offense 
to  the  north  or  the  south  on  the  subject  of  slavery."  Thirty  Years'  View, 
II,  pp.  207,  208. 


330  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 


CHAPTER  V. 

VAN  BUREN'S  PRESIDENCY. 

III.    The  Peesidential  Election  op  1840. 

The  impression  made  by  the  slavery  question,  during  the 
last  preceding  years,  was  great  enough  to  permit  it  to  play 
some  part  in  the  presidential  election  of  1840.  But  it  had 
no  influence  on  the  defeat  of  Yan  Biyen  and  of  the  dem- 
ocratic party.  Often  as  the  president  had  been  called  in 
contempt  "  the  northern  man  with  southern  principles,"  the 
catalogue  of  sins  in  the  campaign  speeches  of  the  leading 
whigs  have  nothing  to  say  of  his  serviceableness  to  the 
slavocracy. 

What  the  opposition  trumpeted  abroad  was  the  financial 
mismanagement.  If  we  were  to  attach  faith  to  the  charges 
of  the  most  zealous  party  organs,  this  mismanagement  was 
certainly  unparalleled.  They  asserted  that  Yan  Buren  had 
heaped  on  the  nation  a  debt  of  $31,310,014,  which  now  had 
to  be  fimded.^  The  situation  appears  in  a  very  different 
light  in  the  statements  of  the  men  who  would  not,  as  they 
should  not,  have  arranged  their  data  to  produce  an  effect 
for  the  moment.  As  "  national  debt,"  Webster  designated, 
at  the  end  of  1840,  only  the  $4,500,000  in  treasury  notes,^ 

'  "  This  is  the  national  debt — the  legacy  of  Van  Burenism.  Mr.  Ewing 
calls  it  so  rightly.  He  recommends  that  it  be  fmided.''  "  We  wish  to 
confine  the  thoughts  of  all  readers  to  one  great  point,  this  week  —  the  con- 
dition of  the  United  States  treasmy,  and  the  amount  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
national  debt,  his  legacy  to  the  people  —  more  than  thirty-one  millions." 
This  and  several  other  almost  like-sounding  declarations  cited  by  "Wood- 
bury in  his  speech  of  the  16th  of  June,  1841.     Writings,  I,  pp.  134,  135. 

•Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1252. 


THE  NATIONAL   DEBT.  331 

which,  according  to  the  message  of  the  5th  of  December, 
were  still  outstanding.  His  charges  culminated  in  the  re- 
proach, that  the  administration  had  expended  yearly  nearly 
eight  millions  over  and  above  its  regular  receipts.  The  ex- 
cess of  expenses  over  and  above  income  was  covered  by  the 
capital  previously  accumulated ;  but  now  this  was  consumed.* 
Hence,  as  yet,  he  knew  nothing  of  a  "  vast  debt "  which 
had  to  be  borne  even  now,  but  was  only  of  opinion  that  evi- 
dently the  country  was  on  the  eve  of  being  burthened  with 
such  a  debt  in  case  it  continued  to  act  as  it  had  hitherto.' 
And,  in  addition,  he  declared  that  he  wished  to  confine  him 
self  entirely  to  figures,  and  not  to  inquire  whether  the  ex- 
penses which  had  been  made  were  "  reasonable  or  nnreason- 
able,  necessary  or  unnecessary." ' 

The  defenders  of  the  administration  were  undoubtedly 
right  in  calling  this  course  of  procedure  improper.  But  in 
what  did  its  guilt  consist,  if  the  outlay  was  reasonable  or 
necessary?  Yet,  on  account  of  these  expenses,  the  administra- 
tion was  placed  in  the  criminal's  dock,  and  the  expenses  were 

'  Even  in  a  speech  of  the  30th  of  March,  1840,  he  had  given  more  min- 
ute expression  to  this:  "  The  six  millions  reserved  under  the  deposit  law, 
the  nine  nulUons  afterwards  withheld  from  the  states,  the  five  millions  re- 
ceived from  the  bank  —  all  these  were  funds  previously  acquired,  and  none 
of  them  any  part  of  the  regular  income  of  1837, 1838  or  1839.  All  the 
income  and  revenue  of  those  years  have  been  expended,  and  these  twenty 
miUions  more.  This  general  state  of  the  treasury,  and  the  history  of  rev- 
enue and  expenditure  for  the  last  three  years,  may  well  awaken  attention. 
We  have  no  twenty  millions  more  in  crib  to  go  to.  Our  capital  is  ex- 
pended. There  will  be  two  millions  and  a  half  due  from  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States  in  September,  and  there  is  a  small  balance  stiU  doe  from  the 
deposit  banks,  both  together  not  exceeding  three  millions  and  a  half;  and 
for  the  rest  we  are  to  rely  on  the  usual  sources,  the  custom  house  and  the 
land  offices."    Webst.'s  Works,  IV,  p.  543. 

* "  What  state  of  things  is  that?  Suppose  it  should  go  on.  Does  not 
every  man  see  that  we  have  a  vast  debt  immediately  before  us?  " 

» Webet's  Works,  V,  pp.  42,  43. 


332  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

used  to  serve  as  proof  that  the  president  was  unworthy  of  a 
reelection. 

The  answer  which  the  spokesmen  of  the  administration 
gave  to  the  question  which  Webster  had  failed  to  discuss, 
transformed  the  crown  of  thorns  into  a  halo  of  glory.  "When 
the  opposition  contrasted  the  regular  income  of  the  govern- 
ment with  its  aggregate  expenses,  Benton  deducted  from  the 
latter  eighteen  different  classes  of  expenses,  as  extraordi- 
nary expenses,  and,  in  this  way,  estimated  that  the  '•  real 
expenses  "  ^  would  have  amounted  not  to  $37,000,000  or 
$39,000,000,  but  to  only  $13,500,000;  that  is,  to  $1,500,000 
less  than  was  required  according  to  the  opposition,  on  the 
hypothesis  of  economic  administration.^  This,  indeed, 
changed  nothing  in  the  fact  that  twenty  and  odd  millions  of 
the  capital  previously  accumulated  had  been  consumed.  But, 
in  opposition  to  this,  Woodbury,  Yan  Buren's  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  showed  that  the  compromise  tariff  had  caused 
a  falling  off  in  the  customs  receipts  of  from  $40,000,000  to 
$50,000,000.' 

What  could  the  masses  of  the  people  do  with  these  con- 
tradictory accounts  which  differed  from  each  other  like  day 
and  night?  In  Benton's  eighteen  classes  figured  tlie  public 
buildings,  indemnities,  pensions,  fortifications,  purchases  of 
arms,  coast-surveys,  the  paying  back  of  illegally  collected 
duties,  increase  of  the  fleet,  the  building  of  harbors,  bridges, 
roads,  etc.  Wliat  practically  valuable  meaning  had  the  claim 
that  the  "  real "  yearly  expense  amounted  to  only  $13,500,000? 
And  in  what  way  was  the  reduction  of  the  custom  receipts 

'  Another  time  he,  more  correctly,  calls  them  "ordinary  and  permanent 
expenses." 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  pp.  12S-133. 

•  "  Over  forty  millions  of  revenue  which  would  otherwise  have  accrued 
had  also  been  relinquished  and  reduced  by  the  alteration  in  the  tariff  of 
1832  and  1833."  Writ,  I,  p.  138;  p.  177,  he  says:  "  Forty  or  fifty  mill- 
ions." 


THE   NATIONAL   DEBT.  333 

of  from  $40,000,000  to  $50,000,000  to  be  placed  before 
the  great  forum  of  citizens  having  the  right  of  suffrage? 
Tlie  opposition  could  certainly  not  be  made  responsible  for 
this  reduction,  since  the  compromise  tariff  was  wrung  fi'om 
it  only  amid  its  loud  complaints  under  the  high  pressure  of 
the  nullification  of  South  Carolina;  and  the  administration 
would  have  called  down  fire  and  brimstone  from  heaven,  if 
the  compromise  tariff  was  to  be  again  exchanged  for  the  tariff- 
laws  existing  before  it,^  But,  on  the  other  hand,  what  means 
had  the  administration  to  meet  its  expenses  if  congress  did 
not  take  care  to  procure  more  income,  and  yet  were  not  to 
use  the  capital  on  hand?  How  could  the  administration  be 
called  to  account,  because  the  appropriations  made  by  con- 
gress so  much  exceeded  the  regular  receipts?  In  the  year 
1837  alone,the  appropriations  made  by  congress  exceeded  the 
estimates  submitted  by  the  administration  ^  by  $17,000,000. 
It  was  evident  that,  at  most,  it  was  the  party  and  not  Van 
Buren  personally,  that  was  responsible  because  the  regular 
receipts  and  expenses  were  so  far  from  being  in  equilibrium. 
But  to  make  the  democrats  alone  responsible  therefor  had 
its  difficulties.     Benton  and  "Woodbury  asked  what  appro- 

'  It,  however,  desired  some  considerable  changes-  in  the  tariff.  Benton 
carried  on  an  active  agitation  for  specific  instead  of  ad  valorem  duties. 
According  to  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  the  different  in- 
terpretation given  to  the  legal  provisions  on  the  ad  valorem  duties  by  the 
judges  and  the  oflBcers  of  custom,  caused  the  government  a  loss  of  over 
$5,000,000  between  IBSb  and  1838.  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  189. 
The  want  of  clearness  of  the  tariff-laws  is  to  this  hour  a  standing  and 
well-grounded  complaint  of  American  merchants. 

Another  evil  was  that  the  old  provisions  on  drawbacks  on  certain  articles 
of  import  continued,  while  the  duties  themselves  underwent  a  large  reduc- 
tion by  the  compromise  tariff.  The  consequence  was  that,  for  instance, 
in  the  case  of  imported  sugar  the  drawbacks  in  1837  amounted  to  $861.71 ; 
in  1838,  to  $12,690;  and  in  1839,  to  $20,154.37,  more  than  the  duties  them- 
selves amounted  to.    Thirty  Years'  View,  11,  p.  191. 

» Woodbury's  Writ.,  I,  p.  137. 


334  Jackson's  administkation — annexation  of  texas. 

priation  the  opposition  had  opposed,  what  one  it  wished  to 
oppose  now,  which  one  it  would  not  vote  over  again.  And 
no  answer  was  given  to  the  inquiry. 

Any  one  who  takes  the  trouble  to  look  through  the  end- 
less debates  on  the  finances  and  the  documents  relating  to 
the  matter,  must  become  convinced  that  in  this  respect  was 
a  declivitous  path  gone  over  at  a  rapid  rate,  during  Yan 
Buren's  administration ;  and  the  president,  as  well  as  his  cab- 
inet, was,  by  no  means,  free  from  all  guilt  in  the  premises. 
The  truth  lay  between  the  charges  of  the  opposition  and  the 
eelf-laudation  of  the  administration  and  its  partisans,  but 
the  former,  however,  were  a  greater  and  bolder  exaggeration 
than  the  latter.  And  it  was  not  only  inequitable  but  un- 
wise to  pitch  the  battle  song  in  a  key  altogether  too  high. 
It  was  not  before  the  door  of  the  executive  alone  that  there 
was  need  of  sweeping.  Weighty  voices,  in  both  parties,  inti- 
mated that  the  dirt  was  highest  before  the  door  of  congress. 
It  was  precisely  the  most  bold-fronted  partisans  of  the  ad- 
ministration who  disturbed  this  heap,^  and  the  opposition 

'  Cambreleng',  the  leader  of  the  admmistration  party  in  the  house,  made 
a  report  as  chairman  of  the  committee  on  ways  and  means,  on  the  24th 
of  January,  1839,  in  which  we  read:  "The  legislative  expenses  of  the 
Federal  government  for  the  first  ten  years  were  annually,  on  an  average, 
about  $171,000;  the  appropriations  for  the  year  1833  were  $982,000.  A 
part  of  this  has  arisen  from  the  increase  in  the  number  of  members  of 
congress;  but  the  most  extravagant  increase  has  occurred  in  the  contingent 
expenses  of  both  houses.  In  the  first  ten  years  these  did  not  amount  to 
more  than  $10,000  annually;  while  the  appropriations  for  the  past  year 
were  $373,960.  Although  under  the  immediate  observation  and  exclusive 
control  of  congress,  there  is  no  branch  of  the  public  service  where  there 
has  been  more  abuse  and  extravagance."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  733. 
The  house  of  representatives,  which  had  two  hundred  and  forty-two  mem- 
bers, consumed  from  1837  to  1839  $69,514,78  for  stationery;  that  is,  $237.2") 
per  member.  It  is  said  that  fifteen  barrels  of  ink  were  consumed  in  writ- 
ing. Four  inkstands  per  capita  were  consumed;  and  one  thousand  two 
hundred  and  seventy- two  penknives,  or  5.62  by  each  person.  Letter  paper 
to  the  amount  of  $80,  and  sealing  wax  to  the  amount  of  $16  per  member, 


THE   NATIONAL   DEBT.  335 

did  not  even  attempt  to  cast  the  blame  of  it  on  the  reigning 
party  alone.  The  person  who  gave  the  subject  any  reflection 
could,  therefore,  soon  say  to  himself  that  tlie  injury  neces- 
sarily lay  deeper  than  in  the  lax  government  of  Yan  Buren 
and  his  ministers.  But  it  would  seem  that  no  one,  at  the 
time,  thought  long  enough  to  reach  the  conclusion  that  both 
parties,  by  the  whole  manner  In  which  they  handled  the 
financial  question,  emulated  each  other  in  promoting  the 
most  luxuriant  development  of  the  fundamental  cause  of  the 
eviL  The  more  boldly  men  went  to  extremes  in  opposite 
directions,  the  more  difficult  did  they  make  it,  not  only  for 
the  people  to  come  to  a  rational  and  well-founded  judgment 
on  the  situation,  but  also  the  more  impossible  did  they 
make  it  to  fix  the  responsibility  on  definite  personages.  The 
country  groaned  under  the  applause  and  the  hissing,  but 
neither  the  applause  nor  the  hissing  was  directed  towards  a 
tangible  object;  and  hence,  whether  the  former  or  the  latter 
prevailed,  the  growth  of  the  mischief  necessarily  continued 
uninterruptedly  in  both  cases.  Not  only  was  there  not  the 
slightest  impulse  given  from  any  quarter  to  a  criticism  which 
might  benefit  the  system,  and  of  the  principles  on  which  it 
was  based,  but  both  parties  did  their  best,  by  agitating  an 
untested  sentimental  policy,  to  take  the  question  entirely  out 
of  the  field  of  view  of  the  people.  Even  the  most  distin- 
guished men  approached  the  subject,  not  as  statesmen,  but 
as  party  politicians.  The  difference  based  on  principle  in 
the  programme  of  the  economic  policy  of  the  two  parties 
had  been  weakened  rather  than  intensified.  While  more 
and  more  rein  was  given  to  criticism,  as  time  went  on,  and 
this  especially  in  the  ranks  of  the  opposition,  people  became 
more  and  more  reserved  in  insisting  on  their  own  positive 

were  consumed.  Summer's  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Retrenchment. 
2d  Sess.  27th  Congr.,  House  Doc.  No.  30;  Colton,  H.  Clay,  II,  p.  396. 
Compare  also  the  data  in  Calhoun,  Works,  lY,  pp.  52,  53. 


336  jACJKSOir's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

principles.  They  gave  too  much  proof  of  the  unworthiness 
of  their  opponents,  and  too  little  of  their  own  worthiness. 
The  strongest  emphasis  was  laid  not  on  the  future,  but  on  the 
past.  Of  the  passion  into  which  men  had  talked  themselves, 
on  the  one  side  and  the  other,  neither  head  nor  heart  really 
knew  much.  This  enabled  the  leaders  to  make  the  masses 
utter  an  unnecessarily  loud  cry  of  war,  but  of  the  real  heat 
of  battle  there  was  surprisingly  little  to  be  found.  On  the 
one  side  and  the  other,  the  struggle  was,  in  the  first  place, 
for  supremacy,  and  in  the  second,  for  a  principle. 

We  shall  see,  later,  that  this  was  the  case  with  the  whigs 
in  a  still  higher  degree  than  with  the  democrats.  And  yet, 
of  all  the  reproaches  made  by  the  whigs  to  the  democrats, 
the  most  serious  and  best  founded  was  that,  since  Jackson's 
presidency,  they  had  sacrificed  to  the  principles  of  the  party 
their  own  convictions,  all  equity  towards  the  opposition,  and 
even  external  decency,  in  a  manner  really  revolting,  and  that 
it  was,  in  this  respect,  worse  during  the  administration  of 
Yan  Buren  than  during  the  worst  days  of  Jackson's. 

One  of  the  largest  pieces  in  the  coarse  artillery  of  the 
whigs,  in  the  electoral  agitation,  was  the  history  of  the  organ- 
ization of  the  house  of  representatives  of  the  twenty-sixth 
congress.  Law  and  right  had,  indeed,  never  yet  been  made 
so  subservient  to  party  interest  in  a  more  impudent  manner.' 

'  "  I  never  knew  a  case  in  which  justice  was  set  at  such  open  and  shame- 
less defiance  as  in  this."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  238.  All  that 
Benton  says  on  this  matter  is  contained  in  the  following  sentence:  "  This 
is  the  session  in  which  a  double  return  of  members  from  New  Jersey  pre- 
vented the  organization  of  the  house,  and  gave  rise  to  lengthened  proceed- 
ing not  necessary  to  be  related  here,  as  not  pertaining  to  the  legislative 
duties  of  congress."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  3.  His  Abridgment  of  the 
Debates  of  Congress  remains,  notwithstanding,  a  meritorious  work,  but  its 
value  is  very  much  lessened  by  the  fact  that  it  is  performed  throughout  in 
this  bold-fronted  party  spirit.  He  never  directly  falsifies  history,  but  he 
falsifies  it  indirectly  at  every  step,  inasmuch  as  he  leaves  what  does  not 
suit  him  entirely  untouched,  or  disposes  of  it  in  a  few  words  expressive  of 


THE    NEW  JEESEY  SEATS.  337 

The  introductory  step  towards  the  organization  of  the 
house  is  the  calling,  by  the  clerk,  of  the  names  of  the  per- 
sons who  have  brousrht  with  them  the  legral  certificate  of 
their  election.  When  this  has  been  done,  if  the  requisite 
number  be  present,  the  organization  is  perfected  by  the 
choice  of  the  speaker.  Fourteen  days  (fi'om  the  2d  to  the 
16th  of  December,  1839)  elapsed  before  the  house  of  the 
twenty-sixth  congress  had  effected  this  organization.  After 
the  six  New  England  states,  New  York  and  J.  M.  Randolph, 
of  New  Jersey,  had  been  called,  the  clerk,  Garland,  paused 
and  conveyed  the  information  that  the  elections  for  the  five 
other  seats  of  the  last  named  state  were  contested;  that,  as 
he  did  not  feel  justified  in  deciding  between  the  parties,  he 
would,  with  the  consent  of  the  house,  pass  over  these  five 
names,and  go  on  with  the  calling  until  the  house  was  formed; 
that  until  the  house,  who  alone  were  entitled  to  give  a  decis- 
ion in  the  matter,  was  constituted,  he  could  bring  no  ques- 
tion to  a  vote.  The  organization  of  the  house  in  the  regular 
way  was  thus  rendered  impossible.  The  debate  grew  hotter 
and  hotter,  but  it  was  impossible  to  get  one  step  farther. 
At  last,  on  the  fourth  day,  Adams  took  the  initiative,  and 
called  upon  his  "  fellow  citizens,  members-elect  of  the  twenty- 
sixth  congress,"  to  take  their  organization,  as  the  house,  into 
their  own  hands  without  any  further  cooperation  of  the 
clerk.     He  was  himself  chosen  chairman  of  the  "  meeting." 

The  difficulty  which  was  to  be  overcome  was  not  an  honest 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  was  right.  Wliat  was  right 
was  as  clear  as  the  noonday  sun,  but  what  was  right  was 
wrong  in  this,  that  it  was  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the 
democratic  party.     The  parties  were  so  equally  divided,  that 

JndifFerence,  while  he  gives  the  discussions  which  are  acceptable  to  him  at 
a  length  which  is  entirely  useless.    The  little  that  Benton,  in  his  Thirty 
Years'  View,  II,  pp.  159,  160,  says  on  this  matter  is  calculated  only  to 
obscure  the  true  state  of  the  legal  question. 
22 


338  Jackson's  ADMiNiSTBATioN — annexation  of  texas. 

which  of  them  should  have  the  majority  depended  on  the 
filling  of  those  five  seats  of  New  Jersey.  If  at  first  they 
were  accorded  to  no  one,  the  democrats  would  have  a  small 
majority,  and  hence  might  hope  to  effect  an  organization  of 
the  liouse  which  would  accord  with  their  wishes;  that  is,  to 
elect  their  candidate  speaker,  and  thus  to  insure  the  compo- 
sition of  all  the  committees  in  their  interest.  In  accordance 
with  this,  both  delegations  were  refused  the  right  to  partici- 
pate in  the  organization.  The  proximate  end  of  this  decis- 
ion was  not,  however,  attained.  A  small  group,  believed  to 
be  in  close  connection  with  Calhoun,  severed  themselves 
from  the  great  body  of  the  democratic  party,  and  on  the 
eleventh  ballot,  in  alliance  with  the  whigs,  chose  Hunter,  of 
Yiginia,  speaker,.who,  2S  we  have  seen,  had  declared  himself 
"  independent." 

According  to  art.  I,  sec.  5,  par.  1,  of  the  constitution,  the 
decision  as  to  which  of  the  two  delegations  the  five  contested 
seats  belonged  devolved  on  the  house  alone.^  But  up  to  this 
point,  the  question  had  been  materially  different.  The 
"house,"  which  was  to  be  the  "judge  of  the  elections  .  .  . 
of  its  own  members,"  did  not  exist  at  all  when  the  two  dele- 
gations were  excluded  from  participation  in  the  organization. 
The  only  rightful  title  to  a  participation  in  that  organization 
was  the  legal  certificate  of  election,  and  the  fiv^e  whigs  only 
had  this  to  show.  The  clerk  of  the  house  not  only  had  no 
right  to  decide  the  controversy  between  the  two  delegations, 
but  in  his  official  capacity  he  should  not  even  have  recognized 
that  there  was  a  contest  over  the  five  seats  in  question.     And 

'  The  protest  of  the  excluded  whigs  questions  even  the  "this  body  not 
being  organized  according  to  the  constitution?  "  The  constitution,  however, 
contains  no  provision  as  to  how  the  house  has  to  organize  itself.  If  the 
claims  of  the  protesting  whigs  were  right,  all  the  acta  of  this  congress  would 
have  been  unconstitutional,  and,  therefore,  null  and  void.  The  protest 
also  states  the  details  of  the  illegalities  which  occurred  at  the  elections  in 
New  Jersey.    Naes,  LVII,  pp.  345,  346. 


THE  NEW  JEESEY  SEATS.  339 

the  rights  of  the  members  "  elect  of  the  house  of  representa- 
tives "  did  not  extend  farther  in  this  respect  than  those  of 
the  clerk.  Tliej,  also,  had  nothing  to  legitimatize  their 
action  but  the  certificate  of  election,  and  no  other  risrhts  but 
those  which  flowed  directly  from  that  certificate. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  the  party  which  claimed  a 
monopoly  of  the  jealous  guardianship  of  state  rights  was 
guilty  of  this  usurpation,  which  was  a  despicable  trampling 
under  foot  both  of  the  rights  and  of  the  honor  of  the  states.^ 
Both  law  and  right  were  again  forced  to  yield  to  the  "  dem- 
ocratic principle;  "2  and  to  the  extent  that  this  yielding  was 
in  harmony  with  the  interest  of  the  party,  it  received  the 
joyful  acquiescence  of  the  people.'  Political  conscience  was 
brought  into  complete  subjection  to  party  spirit,  and  this  at 
a  time  that  party  passion  by  no  means  ran  very  high.* 

'  In  a  democratic  demonstxation  in  the  state  of  New  York,  a  banner  was 
adorned  with  the  device:  "The  Democracy  scorns  the  broad  seal  of  New 
Jersey."    Webster's  Works,  II,  p.  101. 

* "  .  .  .  a  resolution  to  proceed  with  the  organization  of  the  house 
was  adopted  after  an  arduous  and  protracted  struggle,  in  which  every  var 
riety  of  parliamentary  motion  was  exhausted  by  each  side  to  accomplish  its 
purpose;  and  at  the  end  of  three  months  it  was  referred  to  the  committee 
to  report  which  five  of  the  ten  contestants  had  received  the  greatest  number 
of  legal  ( ! )  votes.  This  was  putting  the  issue  on  the  rights  of  the  voters — 
on  the  broad  and  popular  ground  of  choice  by  the  people;  and  was  equiv- 
alent to  deciding  the  question  in  favor  of  the  democratic  contestants,  who 
held  the  certificate  of  the  secretary  of  state  that  the  majority  of  [why  is  the 
little  word  '  legal '  wanting  here  ?J  votes  returned  to  his  oflSce  was  in  their 
favor — counting  the  votes  of  some  precincts  which  the  governor  and  conn- 
dl  had  rejected  for  illegality  in  holding  the  elections.  As  the  constitutional 
judge  of  the  election,  qualifications  and  returns  of  its  own  members,  the 
house  disregarded  the  decision  of  the  governor  and  council;  and,  deferring 
to  the  representative  principle,  made  the  decision  turn,  not  upon  the  con- 
duct of  the  officers  holding  the  election,  but  upon  the  rights  of  the  voters." 
Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  159, 160. 

' "  In  the  New  Jersey  case,  the  popular  interest  is  all  on  our  side  of  the  ques- 
-.on,  and  the  popular  favor  is  for  the  other."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams.X,  p.  176. 

*  I  do  not  think  myself  called  on  to  follow  the  course  of  the  struggle  any 


340   JACKBOn's  ADMTNISTRATIOIT ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

The  great  importance  of  this  contest  over  the  five  'New  Jer- 
sey seats  is  not  to  be  sought  for  in  the  fact  that  the  decision 
helped  the  party,  contrary  to  law  and  right,  to  a  majority  when 
it  should  have  been  in  a  minority  in  the  house  of  representa- 
tives, but  in  this,  that  it  was  only  the  symptomatic  manifes- 
tation of  a  state  of  general  disease.  It  was  not  in  contradic- 
tion with  the  course  of  congress  otherwise,  but  was  in  keep- 
ing with  it  throughout.  During  the  first  three  decades  of 
the  existence  of  the  constitution,  such  a  course  would  have 
been  hardly  possible,  but  now  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
congress,  or  at  least  the  house  of  representatives,  would  un- 
hesitatingly prostitute  itself  when  the  opportunity  required 
it  with  any  urgency,  in  the  interest  of  party.  In  the  sen- 
ate, there  yet  shone  a  splendid  array  of  names  whose  fame 

farther  in  detail.  The  following  account  from  Adams'  diary  of  the  14th 
of  March,  1840,  suffices  for  a  characterization:  "  Neither  the  report  of  the 
committee,  nor  their  journal,  nor  one  particle  of  the  testimony,  has  yet 
been  printed.  Not  a  word  of  the  testimony  against  the  illegal  returns  re- 
jected by  the  governor  and  council  of  New  Jersey  was  even  considered  by 
the  committee.  Tliey  gave  the  parties  time  to  take  their  testimony  till  the 
second  week  in  April.  Six  weeks  before  that  time,  the  house  pass  a  reso- 
lution instructing  them  to  report  forthwith  which  set  of  the  candidates  had 
a  majority  of  the  lawful  votes  of  the  people  of  New  Jersey;  and  they  re- 
pKjrt  forthwith  that  the  non-commissioned  claimants  have  a  majority  of  the 
lawful  votes;  with  an  argument  proving  that  whether  the  majority  was  of 
lawful  votes  or  not  depends  entirely  upon  evidence  yet  to  come,  and  for  the 
procurement  of  which  the  committee  had  given  the  parties  time  tUl  the 
second  week  in  April.  In  this  state  of  things,  evidence  is  received  by  the 
house  proving  the  illegality  of  the  South  Amboy  election;  in  the  face  of 
which,  under  the  screw  of  the  previous  question,  the  house  pass  a  resolu- 
tion directing  the  speaker  to  swear  in  the  non-commissioned  members  as 
having  the  majority  of  the  lawful  votes,  without  waiting  for  further  evi- 
dence, and  without  ever  having  heard  the  parties.  Jenifer  has  probed  this 
state  of  the  proceedings  till  the  majority  of  the  committee  writhed  in 
agony."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  pp.  286,  237.  He  writes  the  day  be- 
fore: "  The  subterfuges  and  evasions  to  suppress  the  testimony  which  falsi- 
fies the  conclusion  of  the  report  are  heart-sickening."  Ibid.,  p.  236.  See 
also  pp.  230,  335,  336. 


CUAEACTEB   OF   THE   HOUSEi  341 

had,  for  a  long  series  of  years,  made  its  way  across  the  ocean. 
True,  the  corrupting  tendencies  which  permeated  the  politi- 
cal life  of  the  nation  had  not  been  without  effect  on  it,  but  it 
had  not,  for  all  that,  yet  lost  the  dignity  and  the  conservative 
character  which,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the  Philadelphia 
convention,  should  distinguish  the  upper  house  of  the  United 
States.  The  physiognomy  of  the  house  of  representatives, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  experienced  a  change  noticeable  at 
the  first  glance.  Not  only  had  the  thermometer  of  political 
ethics  fallen  several  degrees  here,  but  the  intellectual  calibre 
of  the  members  showed  a  diminution  which  called  for  the 
most  serious  reflections;^  men  of  an  essentially  different 
stamp  had  taken  possession  of  one-half  of  the  capitol.  The 
task  of  legislation  became  more  difficult  and  of  a  more  re- 
sponsible character  from  year  to  year,  but  the  weight,  both 
moral  and  intellectual,  of  the  members  became  continu- 
ally less.  The  state,  with  alarming  rapidity,  grew  to  ever 
mightier  proportions,  and  the  problem  how  to  promote  its 
national  growth  without  curtailing  the  rightful  and  even 
necessary  independence  of  its  constitutive  parts,  became  more 
and  more  complicated,  but  its  leaders  shrank  to  a  crowd  of 
nameless  ones,  who,  in  great  part,  were  not  even  local  mag- 
nates. The  population  grew  denser,  the  development  of  the 
process  of  social  classification  went  on,  the  economic  life  of 
the  country  assumed  greater  and  greater  proportions,  develop- 
ing new  organs  every  day,  the  apparatus  of  administration 
extended  almost  without  limit,  and  the  demands  made  on  it 
become  more  and  more  manifold,  but  the  legislators  not  only 

'  "  And,  indeed,  when  I  look  upon  the  composition  of  these  two  bodies, 
the  senate  and  house  of  representatives  of  the  United  States  —  the  cream 
of  the  land,  the  culled  daiUngs  of  fifteen  millions,  scattered  over  two  mill- 
ions of  square  miles  —  the  remarkable  phenomenon  that  they  present  is  the 
level  of  intellect  and  of  morals  upon  which  they  stand;  and  this  universal 
mediocrity  is  the  basis  upon  which  the  liberties  of  this  nation  reposes." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  78. 


342  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

came  to  have  actually  less  and  less  understanding  for  the  laws 
of  political  life,  bnt  they  were  wanting  more  and  more  in  the 
conditions  precedent  to  the  possibility  of  acquiring  such  an 
understanding,  and  they  lost  more  and  more  all  interest  in  it, 
as  well  as  the  recognition  of  the  value  of  understanding  it.  It 
became  more  doubtful  every  day,wliether,  in  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, healthy  morals  and  fidelity  to  one's  convictions  could  be 
united  with  the  demands  of  political  sagacity  and  of  positive 
law;  and  with  every  successive  legislative  term,  the  number 
grew  of  those  who  owed  their  election  to  congress  only  to 
their  success  in  the  arts  of  agitation  in  the  interest  of  party. 
The  deterioration  of  the  average  character  of  the  repre- 
sentatives was,  however,  neither  the  most  surprising  nor  the 
most  important  change  which  had  been  accomplished  in  the 
house.  The  character  of  its  leaders  had  sunk  much  more 
rapidly  and  deeply.  Even  in  the  house  of  representatives, 
there  were  men  yet  to  be  found  who  would  have  been  an 
ornament  to  the  legislative  assembly  of  any  country.  They 
were  not  without  influence,  but  they  did  not  have  the  com- 
mand. This  was  in  the  hands  of  the  most  artful  and 
most  unscrupulous  parliamentary  tacticians.  One  might 
write  a  book  on  the  part  played  by  the  "  rules  of  the  house," 
in  the  legislative  history  of  the  country.  But  the  shortest 
and  emptiest  chapter  in  it  would  treat  of  the  use  made  of 
these  rules  for  the  fulfillment  of  their  legitimate  end. 
This  complicated  machinery  was  gradually  made  a  weapon 
offensive  and  defensive,  always  of  great  importance  and 
often  decisive.  The  man  who  knew  how  to  manipulate  it 
qualified  himself  as  a  leader,  for  success  was  more  essential 
than  the  weight  of  reasons.  The  better  men  willingly  sub- 
ordinated themselves  to  the  more  able  drill-masters,  and  it 
became  customary  for  them  thoughtlessly  to  fall  into  line  at 
the  word  of  command.^     Novices  entered  into  the  artfully 

•  Adams  writes,  on  the  19th  of  July,  1840:    "  Indeed,  the  race  has  not 


CHAEACTEB  OF  THE  HOUSE.  343 

contrived  system,  and  became,  for  the  most  part,  completely 
involved  in  its  meshes  before  they  could  obtain  a  view  of  the 
labyrinthically  twisted  threads.^  It  indeed  still  happened 
that  the  number  of  intellectually,  morally  and  tactically  inde- 
pendent men  was  great  enough  to  be  the  scale-turning  weight 
between  the  parties  operating  with  soldier-like  discipline; 
but  this  was  the  exception.  Neither  fidelity  to  conviction, 
political  judgment  nor  true  patriotism  had  vanished  from 
the  house  of  representatives,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  impres- 
sion made  by  its  transactions  suggests  more  and  more  a 
struggle  between  two  crowds  led,  driven  and  abused  by 
a  few  pettifoggers  dyed  in  the  wool.'  And  yet,  it  was 
incontestable  that  the  majority  of  its  members  came  up  to 
the  average  stature  of  their  constituents;  that  no  small 
number  of  them  towered  above  it,  and  that  the  American 
people  had  no  reason  to  shun  a  comparison  of  their  average 
stature,  intellectual  and  moral,  with  that  of  any  other  people. 
Power  was  more  and  more  completely  wrung  from  the 
statesmen  by  the  politicians,  who  stood  out  from  the  mass 
of  the  people,  a  special  group,  which  became  more  defined 
every  day.  The  distance  between  the  latter  and  the  former 
increased  steadily  and  rapidly,  to  the  disadvantage  of  these, 
but  under  the  deceptive  appearance  of  an  externally  active 
political  life,  the  actual  political  passiveness  of  the  masses 
developed  still  more  rapidly.  People  began  to  pronounce 
the  word  politician  in  a  peculiar  tone,  but  the  progressive 

been,  during  this  session,  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong.  The 
most  important  and  the  worst  measures  of  the  administration  have  been 
carried  through  the  house  by  the  most  contemptible  men  in  it."  Mem.  of 
J.  Q.  Adaras,  X,  p.  338. 

'  Legar6  says:  "  A  few  leaders  dictate,  no  one  knows  how,  to  multitudes 
of  dissenting,  dissatisfied,  and  yet  complying  followers  —  the  whole  body 
doing  what  almost  every  member  of  it  disapproves."    Niles,  LVII,  p.  110. 

'  "The  daily  practices  in  the  house  have  degraded  it  into  a  meeting  of 
sharpers."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  303. 


314  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

monopolizing  of  politics  by  the  politicians  drove  the 
statesmen,  too,  farther  and  farther  in  their  devious  ways 
and  the  practice  of  their  dubious  arts.  The  old  man 
Adams  looked  with  deep  solicitude  on  the  "revolution 
in  the  habits  and  manners  of  the  people,"  which  he  saw 
in  the  agitation  of  the  itinerant  political  preachers.  It 
can  only  provoke  a  smile  to-day  that  he  considered  it  par- 
ticularly alarming  that  the  most  distinguished  members  of 
congress  engaged  in  this  action  with  extraordinary  zeal,  and 
that  he  was  of  opinion  even  that  this  fermentation  tended 
towards  a  civil  war.^  The  great  meetings  and  the  discussion 
of  the  political  questions  of  the  day  before  them  by  the  best 
political  ability,  were  in  complete  harmony  with  the  political 
institutions  of  the  country,  and,  in  themselves,  an  entirely 
legitimate  and  loyal  mode  of  party  propagandisra.  But  it 
must  have  excited  well-grounded  alarm  that  officials  of  the 
Federal  government,  occupying  high  positions,  participated 
in  the  agitation,^  and  that  even  the  two  candidates  for  the 
presidency  —  and  one  of  them  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  was 
president  of  the  United  States  —  endeavored  directly  to 
promote  their  own  election.^    Even  this  would  have  been  of 

'"Not  a  week  has  passed  within  the  last  four  months  without  a  oxm- 
vocation  of  thousands  of  i)eople  to  hear  inflammatory  harangues  against 
Martin  Van  Buren  and  his  administration,  by  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Web- 
ster, and  all  the  principal  opposition  orators  in  or  out  of  congress.  .  .  . 
Here  is  a  revolution  in  the  habits  and  manners  of  the  people.  Where  will 
it  end?  These  are  party  movements,  and  must,  in  the  natural  progress  of 
things,  become  antagonistical.  These  meetings  cannot  be  multiplied  in 
numbers  and  frequency  without  resulting  in  yet  deeper  tragedies.  Their 
manifest  tendency  is  to  civil  war."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  352. 

'This  was  evidently  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  since,  ac- 
cording to  art.  II,  sec.  1,  §  3,  it  was  not  permissible  to  choose  senators, 
representatives  or  federal  officers  electors.  Compare  Story,  Comm.,  II,  pp. 
305,  306,  1473. 

"'Electioneering  for  the  presidency  has  spread  its  contagion  to  the 
president  himself,  to  his  now  only  competitor,  to  his  immediate  predeces- 


OFFICIALS  AND   ELECJTIONS.  345 

no  very  great  importance,  if  there  were  question  here  of 
onlj  a  personal  want  of  tact.  But  it  was  the  natural  cuhni- 
nation  of  a  system  carefully  perfected. 

*  We  have  already  met  the  complaint  that  officials,  both 
federal  and  state,  put  themselves  forward  too  much  in  the 
electoral  campaigns,  and  played  too  great  a  part  in  the 
nominating  conventions.  A  bill  for  the  prevention  of  this 
was  debated  in  the  senate  at  the  beginning  of  1839,^  but  no 

sor,  to  one  at  least  of  his  cabinet  councillors,  the  secretary  of  war,  to  the 
ex-candidates  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster,  and  to  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  members  of  both  houses  of  congress,"  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
X,  pp.  352,  353.  "  AVebster  and  Clay,  W.  C.  Rives,  Silas  Wright,  and 
James  Buchanan  are  among  the  first  and  foremost  in  this  canvassing  ora- 
tory, while  Andrew  Jackson  and  Martin  Van  Buren,  with  his  heads  of 
departments,  are  harping  upon  another  string  of  the  political  accordion  by 
writing  controversial  electioneering  letters,"    Ibid.,  p.  356, 

'  See  Calhoun's  interesting  speech  of  the  22d  of  February,  1839,  Works, 
III,  pp,  382-403.  The  legislature  of  Tennessee  passed,  on  the  14th  of 
November,  1839,  a  series  of  resolutions  (Niles,  LVII,  pp,  203,  204)  which, 
among  other  things,  "  unquaUfiedly  condemned  "  Judge  White's  vote  for 
the  biU,  because  the  bill  would  have  "abridged  the  freedom  of  speech." 
White  resigned  in  consequence  of  this  resolution.  (See  the  reasons  for  his 
resignation,  ibid.,  LVII,  pp,  360-363.)  These  over-zealous  democrats 
should  have  expressed  their  "  unqualified  condemnation  "  of  JeflFerson  also, 
"the  apostle  of  the  American  democracy."  He  writes,  on  the  2d  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1801,  to  Governor  McKean:  "  One  thing  I  will  say,  that  as  to  the 
future,  interferences  with  elections,  whether  of  the  state  or  general  govern- 
ment, by  officers  of  the  latter,  should  be  deemed  cause  of  removal;  because 
the  constitutional  remedy  by  the  elective  principle  becomes  nothing,  if  it 
may  be  smothered  by  the  enormous  patronage  of  the  general  government," 
Jeff,'8  Works,  IV,  p.  350,  The  details  of  the  history  of  Crittenden's  bill 
may  be  gleaned  from  a  speech  of  Rives  of  the  7th  of  September,  1839. 
Niles,  LVII,  p,  109,  The  following  passage  deserves  to  be  quoted:  "  The 
bill  was  referred  to  the  judiciary  committee  of  the  senate,  of  which  Mr, 
Wall,  of  New  Jersey,  was  chairman.  The  committee,  after  holding  the 
biU  under  their  consideration  for  several  weeks,  at  length  made  a  very 
elaborate  report,  discussing  very  much  at  large  the  general  question  of  the 
rights  and  duties  of  federal  officeholders  in  regard  to  popular  elec- 
tions. ...  It  boldly  contended  that  it  was  not  merely  the  right  but 
the  duty  of  officeholders  to  busy  themselves  in  elections,  to  shape  public 


346  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

law  was  passed  on  the  subject.  Now  the  complaints  not 
only  grew  louder,  but  came  from  men  above  the  suspicion 
of  wishing  to  make  capital  for  a  partj.^ 

What  was  to  be  expected  from  Yan  Buren  in  this  respect," 
may  be  inferred  from  what  has  been  already  said  on  his 
eflSciency  as  chief  of  the  Albany  Hegency  and  the  part  it 

opinion,  and  to  influence  and  direct  the  people  in  the  choice  of  their  repre- 
sentatives. In  its  whole  spirit  and  reasoning,  it  was  not  only  a  justification, 
but  it  was  plainly  an  incitement  to  the  whole  corps  of  official  dependents 
to  exert  their  electioneering  activity  in  the  pohtical  contests,  on  the  fate  of 
which  their  employers  depended.  They  were  told,  in  so  many  words,  that 
if  they  '  withdrew  themselves  from  this  high  responsibility '  they  would 
deserve  to  be  declared  infamous '  and  to  be  stigmatized  as  *  idiots  and 
mutes.'  Now,  such  monstrous  doctrines  as  these,  and  the  bold  and  un- 
blushing avowal  of  them,  received,  as  they  were,  with  the  most  marked 
approbation  by  the  whole  administration  party  in  the  senate,  in  an  order 
instantaneously  moved  and  adopted  for  the  printing  10,000  copies  of  the 
report,  seemed  to  mc,"  etc. 

■  "Besides  the  prime  leaders  of  the  parties,  numerous  subaltern  officers 
of  the  administration  are  summoned  to  the  same  service,  and,  instead  of 
attending  to  the  duties  of  their  offices,  rave,  recite  and  madden  round  the 
land."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  356. 

The  stories  told  by  partisans  are  incredible.  Thus,  for  instance.  Clay,  in 
his  speech  of  the  10th  of  July,  1840,  at  TaylorsvHle,  said :  "  Accordingly,  the 
process  of  converting  them  [the  army  and  the  navy]  into  executive  instru- 
ments has  commenced  in  a  court  martial  assembled  at  Baltimore.  Two 
officers  of  the  army  of  the  United  States  have  been  there  put  upon  their 
solemn  trial,  on  the  charge  of  prejudicing  the  democratic  party  by  making 
purchases  for  the  supply  of  the  army  from  members  of  the  whig  party. 
It  is  not  pretended  that  the  United  States  were  prejudiced  by  those  pur- 
chases. On  the  contrary,  it  was,  I  believe,  estabhshed  that  they  were 
cheaper  than  could  have  been  made  from  the  supporters  of  the  admmis- 
tration.  But  the  charge  was,  that  to  purchase  at  all  from  the  opponents, 
instead  of  the  friends  of  the  administration,  was  an  injuiy  to  the  demo- 
cratic party  which  required  that  the  oft'enders  should  be  put  upon  their  tiial 
before  a  court  martial!  And  this  trial  was  commenced  at  the  instance  of 
a  committee  of  a  demoa'atic  convention,  and  conducted  and  prosecuted  by 
them."  Sp.,  II,  p.  429.  I  am  acquainted  with  nothing  else  on  this  sub- 
ject, which  is  also  referred  to  shortly  in  an  "  address  to  the  democratic  re- 
pubUcan  electors  of  the  state  of  New  York."    Niles,  LIX,  p.  142. 


OFFICIALS   AKD   ELECTIONS.  347 

played  in  Jackson's  first  election.  Even  in  1820,  imme- 
diately before  an  election,  he  bad  demanded  tbe  removal, 
without  delay,  of  four  postmasters,  as  an  "  act  of  justice," 
In  order  to  help  the  organs  of  his  party's  fraction  to  a  better 
circulation,^  That  now,  when  there  was  question  of  his  own 
election  as  president,  he  was  not  more  timid  in  the  employ- 
ment of  such  means  is  self-evident.  The  person  who  lends 
himself  to  such  practices  sinks  ever  deeper  in  the  mire.  This 
is  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case.  Things  had  for  years  come 
to  such  a  pass  that  the  press  did  not  blush  directly  to  menace 
those  officials  who  voted  with  the  opposition,  or  who  only 
showed  themselves  too  negligent  in  working  for  the  adminis- 
tration.^ The  next  step  in  advance  was  the  introduction  of 
assessments  for  party  purposes,  graduated  according  to  the 

•  M.  Van  Buren  to  Henry  Meigs,  General  PostofBce,  Washington,  April 
4,  1820. — "  My  Dear  Sir:  Our  sufferings,  owing  to  the  rascality  of  deputy 
postmasters,  is  intolerable,  and  aies  aloud  for  relief.  We  find  it  absolutely 
impossible  to  penetrate  the  interior  with  our  papers,  and  unless  we  can  at- 
tain them  by  two  or  three  prompt  removals,  there  is  no  Umiting  the  inju- 
rious consequences  that  may  result  from  it;  let  me,  therefore,  entreat  the 
postmaster-general  to  do  an  act  of  justice,  and  render  us  a  partial  service, 
by  the  removal  of  Holt,  of  Herkimer,  and  the  appointment  of  Jabez  Fox, 
Esq.;  also  of  Howell,  of  Bath,  and  the  appointment  of  an  excellent  friend, 
W.  B.  Rochester,  Esq.,  a  young  man  of  the  fii-st  respectability  and  worth 
in  the  state,  and  the  removal  of  Smith,  at  Little  Falls,  and  the  appoint- 
ment of  Holhster,  and  the  removal  of  Chamberlin,  in  Oxford,  and  the  ap- 
pointment of  Lot  Clark,  Esq.  I  am  in  extreme  haste,  and  can,  therefore, 
add  no  more.  Use  the  inclosed  papers  according  to  your  discretion;  and 
if  anything  is  done,  let  it  be  quickly  done,  and  you  may  rely  upon  it  much 
good  will  result  from  it."  The  letter  was  written  three  weeks  before  the 
state  elections.  The  four  postmasters  whose  dismissal  was  called  for  were 
repubhcans,  but  they  had  supported  Clinton's  candidacy  for  the  governor- 
ship, while  Van  Buren  was  the  leader  of  the  Tompkins  party.  Van  Buren's 
wish  was  realized.    Mackenzie,  Life  and  Times  of  M.  Van  Buren,  p.  30. 

*  The  organ  of  the  administration  in  New  York  wrote,  in  1838,  in  rela- 
tion to  some  officials  of  the  custom  house  there  who  had  given  reason  for 
suspicion  in  this  respect:  "  We  would  just  remark  to  those  gentlemen, 
that  a  vigilant  eye  is  upon  them,  and  that  their  proceedings  on  the  three 


34:8  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

salaries  of  the  officials.^  As  a  matter  of  course,  no  one  was 
obliged  to  paj  these  assessments.  All  handed  them  in  will- 
inglj,  but  had,  at  the  same  time,  the  small  interest  in  doing 
so  not  to  lose  their  office.     Especially  in  the  New  York  cus- 

days  of  November  next  [the  day  of  election]  will  not  escape  scrutiny."  On 
the  17th  of  September,  1838,  the  following  notice  appeared:  "  The  officers 
of  the  revenue  department,  residing  in  the  fifth  ward,  are  requested  to  meet 
at  Riley's  Hotel,  Tuesday,  25th  of  September,  at  half-past  seven  o'clock. 
By  order  of  Ichabod  Prall,  chairman."  Concerning  which  the  "Evening 
Star  "  remarked:  "  Above  we  have  a  call  for  a  meeting  of  the  officers  of 
our  custom  house,  in  order  to  interfere  with  the  coming  elections,  and  the 
apathy  of  our  citizens  in  regard  to  such  proceedings  is  calculated  to  alarm 
every  friend  of  the  repubhc."  R.  Mayo,  PoUtical  Sketches  of  Eight  Years 
in  Washington,  p.  38. 

'  In  the  investigation  on  the  Swartwout  case,  of  which  we  shall  treat 
more  in  detail  immediately,  the  witness  A.  S.  DePeyster  says:  "The 
weighers  [of  the  custom  house  of  New  York]  were  called  on  to  pay  fifteen 
dollars  each  for  the  support  of  the  election;  and  when  I  declined,  Mr.  Van- 
derpoel,  the  deputy  surveyor,  observed,  that  1  ought  to  consider  whether 
my  $1,500  per  annum  was  not  wor:.h  paying  fifteen  dollars  for.  Under 
the  impression  that  it  was  the  price  of  my  situation,  I  paid  it.  .  .  .  He 
(Mr.  Vanderpoel)  had  a  Hst  of  the  names  of  the  officers  from  whom  he  col- 
lected the  tax."  The  witness  D.  S.  Lyon  says:  "I  have  frequently  been 
called  on  to  contribute  to  political  objects  while  I  was  deputy  collector,  as 
an  officer  of  the  custom  house.  The  amount  was  from  twenty  to  one  hun- 
dred dollars.  The  tax  was  pro  rata,  according  to  salary.  It  bore  a  pro- 
portion of  from  one  to  sis  per  cent.  ...  It  was  assessed  by  the  gen- 
eral committee  of  Tammany  Hall,  and  for  the  support  of  the  party  denom- 
inated the  Tammany  Hall  paity.  If  the  individual  did  not  pay  the  amount 
he  was  taxed  with,  the  collector  would  remark,  you  will  be  reported  to  the 
general  committee  —  and  everybody  well  understood  that  proscription 
would  follow.  The  collector  of  the  general  committee  has  an  alphabetical 
book,  which  contains  the  names  of  persons  taxed,  and  the  amount  each 
individual  is  required  to  pay."  The  witness  J.  Becker  refused  to  answer 
the  question  whether,  to  his  knowledge,  the  district  attorney,  W.  M.  Price, 
had  made  payments  for  party  purposes.  To  the  question,  whose  "confi- 
dence" he  would  "violate"  by  furnishing  information  on  this  point,  he 
answered:  "  The  confidence  of  the  finance  committee  of  the  general  demo- 
cratic republican  committee."  Report  (of  the  majority)  of  the  Committee 
of  Investigation.    Niles,  LVI,  p.  183. 


ASSESSMENTS   FOE   PARTY    PURPOSES.  349 

torn  house,  where  all  abuses  were  carried  farthest,^  this  danger 
was  by  no  means  small,  for,  according  to  a  decision  of  the 
attorney  general,  the  collector  was  not  obliged  even  to  give 
any  information  as  to  the  grounds  of  the  removal  of  his  sub- 
ordinates.^ The  heads  of  departments  were  obviously  respon- 
sible to  no  one  in  this  matter,  in  relation  to  the  officers  ap- 
pointed by  them.  What  immense  power  was  thus  put  in 
their  hands  may  be  inferred  from  this  one  fact,  that  there 
were  13,028  postoffices  on  the  30th  of  November,  1839.' 

What  was  to  become,  what  necessarily  would  become  of 
officials  who  owed  their  appointment  more  and   more  to 

*  Benton,  too,  calls  "  the  custom  house  of  New  York,  the  terror  of  the 
honest,  and  the  hope  of  the  corrupt."  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  208. 
The  significance  of  this  fact  appears  for  the  first  time  in  its  right  light, 
when  it  is  kept  in  view  that  "the  customs  collected  in  New  York  equal 
nearly  two-thirds  of  the  whole  amount  in  all  the  United  States."  Special 
Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  on  Mr.  Swartwout's  Defalcations, 
House  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  No.  13,  p.  6. 

*  "The  approbation  of  the  head  of  the  treasury  department  is  necessary 
to  the  employment  of  the  oflBcers  in  question,  by  the  express  provisions  of 
the  acts  of  1799  and  1815;  but  nothing  is  said  of  their  removal.  By  neces- 
sary implication,  however,  and  in  analogy  to  the  constitutional  power  of 
removal  exercised  by  the  president,  the  collector  has  the  like  power;  and 
as  the  law  does  not  require  him  to  state  the  cause  of  removal,  nor  even 
require  it  to  be  done  with  the  approbation  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury, 
I  do  not  see  that  the  latter  has  any  legal  authority  to  call  for  the  reasons 
on  which  the  collector  proceeds.  Where  a  new  appointment  is  to  follow, 
the  reasons  of  the  removal  may  be  useful  to  the  secretary  in  deciding 
whether  or  not  the  new  appointment  shall  be  approved;  and,  in  ordinary 
cases,  a  due  regard  to  the  harmony  of  the  pubUc  service,  and  the  respect 
due  to  the  superior  oflEcer,  would  seem  to  dictate  a  compliance  with  such  a 
call.  On  the  other  hand,  cases  may  easily  be  imagined  where  the  public 
interest  may  strongly  demand  a  removal,  and  where  yet  the  collector,  with- 
out any  violation  of  official  comity,  may  very  properly  withhold  the  reasons 
of  his  action.  But,  whatever  may  be  the  motive  or  character  of  the  refusal 
to  assign  such  reasons,  his  legal  right  to  withhold  them  appears  to  me  tc 
be  very  dear."    April  30,  1838.    Opin.  of  the  Att.  Gen.,  Ill,  p.  326. 

*  Van  Buren's  third  annual  message;  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1232. 


350  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

their  services  in  the  interest  of  a  partj — who  must  have 
considered  it  almost  certain  that  a  change  in  the  presidency 
would  put  an  end  to  their  official  existence  —  who  even, 
during  this  short  period,  were  entirely  at  the  caprice  of  their 
chiefs,  and  who  knew  that  the  latter  would  use  their  shears 
of  the  Fates,  if  they  did  not  abuse  their  official  position  to 
promote  the  cause  of  the  party? 

Complaints  were  not  wanting  even  during  the  admini- 
stration of  Jackson,  but  now  for  the  first  time  disclosures 
were  made  which  afforded  a  sufficiently  large  number  of 
palpable, proven  facts  to  enable  one  to  form  an  approximately 
correct  idea  as  to  how  far  the  evil  had  already  spread,  and 
how  deeply  it  had  eaten  its  way.  The  president,  on  the  7th 
of  December,  1838,  transmitted  to  congress  a  report  of  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury  on  the  defalcations,  "  recently  dis- 
covered," of  Samuel  Swartwout,  the  ex-collector  of  New 
York.*  Tlie  house  of  representatives  thereupon,  on  the  17th 
of  January,  1839,  chose  a  committee  of  nine  members  to 
investigate  the  defalcations  "  of  the  custom  house  at  New 
York  and  other  places."  ^ 

Swartwout's  debit  amounted  to  $1,225,705.  Enormous  as 
this  sum  was,  it  was  not  so  much  its  magnitude  as  the  cir- 
cumstances attending  the  swindle  which  made  the  case  a 
national  question  of  eminent  importance. 

Swartwout  was  part  of  the  legacy  left  by  Jackson.  His 
"  first  misuse  of  the  public  money  "  dated,  according  to  Wood- 
bury's account,  back  into  the  year  1830.*  The  report  of  the 
committee  argued  long  and  vigorously  against  this  allega- 
tion, and  showed  that  the  accounts  of  the  collector  were  en- 
tirely correct  up  to  the  1st  of  December,  1837.     There  was 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  702. 

'  The  resolutions  were  printed  before  the  report  of  the  committee.  Niles, 
LVf,  p.  87.  Here  it  is  said,  that  the  message  of  the  president  was  of  the 
8th  of  December. 

» House  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  No.  13,  p.  4. 


swaetwout's  defalcation.  351 

only  an  apparent  contradiction  between  the  two  allegations. 
The  secretary  of  the  treasury  adhered  to  the  fact,  while  the 
committee  affected,  on  this  point,  to  be  able  to  see  nothing  but 
tlie  lines  of  figures  in  the  opposite  columns.  This  was  a  waste 
of  much  powder,  to  no  purpose.  Wliichever  of  the  two  stand- 
points was  adopted,  the  administration  appeared  in  an  equally 
bad  light.  In  the  one  case,  a  swindle  of  grand  proportions 
was  able  to  be  carried  on  eight  years  without  being  discov- 
ered; and,  in  the  other,  the  administration  had  been  satisfied 
for  seven  years,  because  Swart wout  had  charged  himself  in 
the  books  with  the  correct  amount,  but  had  actually  failed 
to  pay  over  immense  sums.  On  the  other  hand,  it  had  to  be 
confessed  that,  in  both  cases,  so  far  as  the  president  and  the 
secretary  of  the  treasury  could  rightly  be  held  personally  re- 
sponsible for  the  transfer  of  so  important  an  office  to  the 
care  of  a  cheat,  the  indictment  should  have  been  drawn  up 
in  the  first  place  against  Jackson  and  Ingham.  It  was  plain 
that  these  could  not  be  exculpated  of  personal  guilt,  since  it 
appeared  from  the  examination  of  witnesses  that  Swartwout, 
at  the  time  of  his  first  appointment  to  the  place,  was  a  noto- 
rious speculator  on  'Change,  and  deeply  involved  in  debt.* 
But  the  responsibility  extended  further.  The  nomination  of 
the  collector  required  the  confirmation  of  the  senate,  which, 
according  to  custom,  referred  Swartwout's  nomination,  in 
1834,  to  a  committee  to  report  on,  after  they  had  considered 
it.  This  committee  conceived  a  suspicion,  and  instituted  an 
examination  of  witnesses,  but  finally  sent  in  a  favorable  re- 
port, although  the  majority  of  the  members  belonged  to  the 
opposition.  One  of  the  witnesses,  the  auditor  of  customs, 
knew  that  Swartwout  had  not  adjusted  an  item  of  $30,000 
which  was  due,  but  he  did  not  give  any  information  of  the 
fact.  "When  taken  to  task  for  this  afterwards,  he  said  that 
he  had  not  considered  it  his  duty  to  do  so.     When  asked 

» Majority  Report,  Nfles,  LVI,  pp.  92-94. 


352  Jackson's  administration — annexation  op  texas. 

why  he  did  not  so  consider  it,  he  answered:  "  Because  we 
clerks  of  the  custom  house  consider  ourselves  in  the  service 
of  the  collector,  and  not  in  the  service  of  the  United  States."  ^ 
Even  before  Yan  Buren  had  entered  the  White  House,  the 
number  of  those  who  might,  with  the  best  of  reason,  have 
been  held  personally  responsible  for  the  appointment  of  such 
a  man  or  for  his  continuance  in  office,  was  great  enough, 
over  and  over  again,  not  to  permit  any  one  to  be  held  respon- 
sible, for  the  simple  reason  that  their  number  was  too  large. 
Notwithstanding  all  this,  there  yet  remained  enough  of 
the  Swartwout  case  to  make  out  a  bill  against  Yan  Buren's 
administration  —  a  bill  which,  with  reason,  played  a  very 
great  part  in  the  electoral  campaign.  The  foregoing  admin- 
istration had  allowed  seven  years  to  elapse  without  having 
the  collector's  legal  bonds  in  the  comptroller's  office  at  Wash- 
ington,^ and  Woodbury  delayed  seven  months  compelling 
the  collector  to  close  and  settle  his  account  with  the  govern- 
ment.^   But  no  one  was  guilty.     The  secretary  of  the  treas- 

'  Minority  Report,  ibid.,  p.  186. 

*  Minority  Report,  ibid.,  p.  187. 

'  "  But  again  the  department  fell  into  a  dead  slumber  relative  to  Mr. 
Swartwout's  accounts,  from  which  it  was  not  awakened  until  in  the  early 
part  of  November,  over  seven  months  after  Mr.  Swartwout  had  retired 
from  office,  and  over  four  months  after  the  return  day  of  Mr.  Swartwout's 
last  quarter's  account  had  expired  without  having  been  returned,  and  two 
months  after  his  sureties  had  been  notified  (through  Comptroller  Barker) 
of  his  neglect  to  return  and  settle  his  accounts.  From  April  until  the  31st 
of  August,  a  period  of  four  months,  Mr.  Swartwout,  though  known  to  be 
holding  a  large  amount  of  public  money,  and  no  longer  an  officer  of  gov- 
ernment, was  not  disturbed  by  even  a  call  from  the  comptroller  to  settle, 
or  explain  his  neglect  to  settle  his  accounts.  Yet,  on  the  adjustment  of 
this  collector's  accounts  in  the  mean  time,  viz.,  June  21,  1S38,  for  the 
quarter  preceding  his  last  quarter,  the  comptroller  knew  the  balance  of 
bonds,  cash  and  imsettled  accounts  against  the  collector,  was  nine  miUions 
six  hundred  thousand  dollars  and  upwards.  On  the  1st  of  July  the  comp- 
troller knew,  or  should  have  known,  but  for  extraordinary  inattention  and 
neglect  of  duty,  that  the  time  for  rendering  and  settling  Mr.  Swartwout's 


SWAETWODT's    DEFALOATIOlir.  353 

urj  threw  the  disgusting  parcel  to  the  comptroller,  who,  iti 
tlie  questions  in  point,  was  independent;  the  comptroller  in 
like  manner  sent  it  further,  and  thus  it  was  kept  brisklv 
moving  on  and  on,  like  bricks  in  the  hands  of  workmen  when 
a  house  is  putting  up  —  only  it  did  not  go  upwards,  but  down- 
wards, until  it  reached  the  bed  of  sickness,  to  be  at  la^t 
safely  interred  in  the  grave.  Of  three  of  the  comptroller's 
books,  two  were  no  longer  kept  at  all,  and  the  third,  accord- 
ing to  the  unanimous  testimony  of  the  witnesses,  not  a  soul 
in  the  treasury  department  understood.  The  pertinent  ex- 
cuse for  this  was  the  sickness  of  one  clerk  and  the  death  of 
two  others.^ 

The  report  of  the  minority  insisted  repeatedly,  in  tones  of 
excuse,  that  it  could  never  have  come  to  such  a  pass,  if  Swart- 
wout  had  not  had  a  large  number  of  accomplices.'^  The  fact 
was  correct  enough,  and  it  was  all  the  more  significant  be- 
cause the  accomplices  did  not  consist  entirely  of  the  collect- 
or's subordinates.  Among  them  were,  especially,  the  district 
attorney.  Price,  who  had  cheated  the  government  out  of 
$72,124.*    Yet  the  fact  does  not  appear  in  a  completely  right 

accounts  had  expired;  and  that  by  the  act  of  March  3, 1795,  it  had  become 
his  express  duty  to  cause  Mr.  Swartwout's  accounts  to  be  stated,  and  to 
issue  a  warrant  against  him  and  his  sureties."    Maj.  Rep.,  ibid.,  p.  108. 

'  Majority  Report,  ibid.,  119,  and  Minority  Report,  p.  1^7. 

*  "  The  eighth  cause,  and  one  of  the  principal,  was  a  combination  of  mi- 
principled  men,  officers  in  the  custom  house,  to  defraud  the  government 
and  plunder  the  people.  Without  this  combination,  Swartwout  could  not 
have  concealed  his  frauds  a  day,  certainly  not  a  week.  ...  No  calm 
and  dispassionate  man  can  read  the  evidence  taken  by  the  committee  in 
the  progress  of  this  investigation,  but  will  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
cashier  and  assistant  cashier  and  the  deputies  of  the  custom  house  being 
indebted  to  Swartwout  for  their  offices,  and  subject  to  be  removed  by  him, 
was  one  of  the  great  causes  of  peculation,  and  of  its  concealment."  Ibid., 
pp.  188,  191. 

* "  Subject,  however,  in  all  probability,  to  some  off-sets  for  legal  services 
not  yet  rendered  in  the  charges  of  Mr.  Price."  Report  of  the  majority. 
Ibid.,  p.  123. 

23 


354   JiCKSON^S  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXA.TION  OF  TEXAS. 

light  until  one  goes  beyond  this  investigation  and  sees  how 
this  peculiar  kind  of  business  afterwards  flourished.  The 
custom  house  office  of  New  York,  under  Hoyt,  bore  a  very 
strong  resemblance  to  that  under  Swartwout.^ 

The  minority  of  the  investigating  committee  seems,  with- 
out giving  direct  expression  to  it,  to  have  desired  to  make 
everybody  believe  that  no  secretary  of  the  treasury  would  have 
been  able  to  protect  the  state  against  the  serried  ranks  of  the 
custom  house  office.  The  conclusion  that  so  many  of  the  cus- 
tom house  officials  were  in  the  same  boat  was  warranted  to  a 
certain  extent,  and  was  of  some  importance,  even  if  it  were 
not  the  only  conclusion,  nor  the  most  material  one,  which 
could  have  been  drawn  from  the  above  premises.  But  it  mat- 
tered not  how  much  this  might  excuse  the  administration,  it 
stood  under  a  similar  accusation  in  quarters  in  which  there 
could  be  no  suspicions  of  "  combinations  of  unprincipled  men." 
In  the  land  offices,  the  mismanagement  was  as  great  as  in  the 
custom  houses,  even  if  the  sums  lost  ty  the  government  in 
them  were  much  smaller.'^  Here,  too,  not  the  slightest  suspi- 
cion rested  on  Woodbury's  personal  honor.  His  hands  were 
entirely  clean,  but  the  rascals  carried  on  their  trade  under  him 
with  as  much  unconcern  as  they  possibly  could  under  a  chief 
who  insisted  on  receiving  from  them  a  regular  percentage  of 
their  unlawful  gains.  But  this  does  not,  by  any  means,  signify 
that  he  was  indifierent  to  their  intrigues.  His  voluminous 
correspondence  with  them  is  an  uninterrupted  series  of  ad- 
monitions, prayers  and  threats,  all  of  which  remained  equally 

'  Under  Hoyt,  every  official  in  the  custom  house  in  New  York  consumed 
stationery  on  an  average  per  annum  of  $276-276.  The  gross  of  steel 
pens  was  charged  to  the  government  at  the  rate  of  $22,  while  it  might 
be  had  for  $1.50.  The  "  i)eck  "  of  sand  which  cost  twelve  and  one-half 
cents  was  put  on  the  accoimt  at  $3.50,  and  the  ream  of  paper  worth  $15,  at 
$80.    Colton,  H.  aay,  II,  p.  398. 

•See  the  list,  Niles,  LVI,  pp.  140,  141. 


WOODBITEy's   CHAKACrrBB.  355 

fruitless.  One  can  scarcely  ward  off  the  impression  that 
the  gentlemen  even  grew  merry  at  his  expense.  He  con- 
tinned  to  be  consideration  and  deference  themselves  even 
when  his  Job-like  patience  was  at  length  exhausted,  and  he 
cast  an  altogether  too  hardened  sinner  overboard.  But  even 
then  he  allowed  these  gentlemen  ample  time  to  put  their 
affairs  in  order,  and  lauded  their  honesty  when  they  promised 
to  put  their  property  at  the  disposal  of  the  government  to 
guard  against  loss.  But  even  with  this  he  could  not  satisfy 
all.  His  investigating  commissioner  advised  him  to  leave 
those  in  oflEice  who  had  already  feathered  their  nests,  since 
new  officials  would  begin  the  business  over  again.*      Bat 

'  A  short  extract  from  Woodbury's  correi?pondence  with  Boyd,  the  re- 
ceiver at  Columbus,  in  Mississippi,  will  suffice  to  characterize  both  the  per- 
Bons  and  the  situation.  On  the  24th  of  July,  1837,  the  collector  writes  to 
the  secretary  of  the  treasury:  "I  was  anxious  to  obtain  (for  a  second 
seairity)  the  names  of  those  who  were  on  my  first  bond  (to  whom  I  have 
made  an  explanation  of  my  affairs)  in  preference  to  any  others,  in  order  to 
show  to  the  department  that  my  friends  here,  and  those  who  knew  my 
business  best,  still  have  confidence.  The  truth  is,  I  am  in  default,  a  cir- 
cumstance which  has  originated  from  my  reposing  too  great  confidence  in 
others.  I  am,  however,  prepared  and  determined  to  secure  the  government 
against  loss,  not  only  by  a  suflScient  bond,  but  also  to  secure  it  and  my 
friends  by  an  unconditional  surrender  of  the  whole  of  my  property,  when- 
ever it  may  be  required.  ...  It  is  also  my  intention,  as  soon  as  I  can 
properly  arrange  these  things,  to  forward  my  resignation."  To  this,  Wood- 
bury answers  on  the  8th  of  August:  "  I  am  happy  to  hear  of  the  frank  and 
honorable  course  proposed  in  your  letter  of  the  24th  ult.  It  would  be  con- 
venient to  have  the  bond  and  resignation  arrive  here  by  the  early  part  of 
September.''  These  letters  would  perhaps  not  excite  special  attention, 
were  it  not  that  in  the  following  letter  of  the  investigating  commissioner, 
Gareshe,  to  Woodbury  of  the  14th  of  June,  that  is,  six  weeks  before  the 
above  letter  of  Boyd,  the  right  commentary  to  it  is  preserved:  "The  ac- 
count of  the  receiver  which  I  have  made  out,  and  transmit  herewith,  pre- 
sents against  him  a  balance  of  $55,9(>5.54.  His  own  account  makes  it 
$53,272.73;  it  is  also  anmexed.  .  .  .  The  man  seems  really  penitent; 
and  I  am  inclined  to  think,  in  common  with  his  friends,  that  he  is  honest, 
and  has  been  led  away  from  his  duty  by  the  example  of  his  predecessor, 


356  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

"Woodbury  himself  subsequently  boasted  that  he  had,  how- 
ever, without  following  the  example  of  European  despots, 
removed  all  convicted  swindlers  unless  they  had  previously 
resigned  of  themselves;  but  how  long  a  time  was  left  them 
to  resign  "  honorably,"  he  does  not  say.^ 

This  certainly  was  a  condition  of  things  which  called 
urgently  for  a  reform.  And  it  was  just  as  certain  that  this 
reform  was  not  to  be  expected  of  the  reigning  party.  To 
ask  a  political  party  to  abolish  the  abuses  which  it  industri- 
ously cultivated  and  brought  to  maturity,  and  on  which  its 
power  was,  in  great  part,  based,  is  to  ask  the  impossible. 
Such  an  internal  reform  is  an  absurdity,  for  the  party,  from 
the  very  fact  that  it  proceeded  to  effect  the  reform  honestly 
and  with  a  proper  understanding  of  its  meaning,  would  have 

and  a  certain  looseness  in  the  code  of  morality,  -which  here  does  not  move 
in  80  limited  a  circle  as  it  does  with  us  at  home.  Another  receiver  would 
probably  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  two.  You  will  not,  therefore,  be 
surprised,  if  I  recommend  his  being  retained  in  preference  to  another  ap- 
pointment; for  he  has  his  hands  full  now,  and  will  not  be  disposed  to  spec- 
ulate any  more.  ...  He  has,  moreover,  pledged  his  word,  that  if 
retained,  he  will  strictly  obey  the  law.  .  .  .  Lenity  towards  him,  there- 
fore, might  stimulate  him  to  exertions  which  severity  might,  perhaps,  par- 
alyze."   Niles,  LVl,  p.  156. 

'  "  It  seems  that  I  committed  a  heinous  sin  in  writing  and  urging  on 
receivers  too  often  a  careful  discharge  of  their  duties.  He  [Senator  Evans, 
of  Mainel  probably  thinks  that  the  more  modem  military  style  of  the  pres- 
ent administration  should  have  been  adopted;  and  whether  sufficient  cause 
existed  or  not,  I  should  have  said  to  the  president,  at  once,  '  off  with  their 
heads.'  Let  me  caution  that  gentleman  against  too  suddenly  inti-odrr.ing 
into  our  civil  system  of  equal  rights  and  privileges  either  military,  drum 
head,  court-martial  codes,  or  precedents  from  the  worst  eras  of  European 
despotism.  ...  In  every  instance,  also,  in  aU  the  recent  correspond- 
ence to  which  the  gentleman  refers,  not  a  case  can  be  found  of  a  wairant 
on  a  receiver  being  protested  or  unpaid,  unless  explained  by  some  accident, 
and  the  receiver  was  not  forthwith  (?! )  suspended  or  removed.  So  no  case 
exists  of  a  pecuniary  default  or  embezzlement,  clearly  ascertained  on  our 
own  books,  when  the  offending  receiver  was  not  dismissed,  if,  in  the  mean 
time,  he  had  not  resigned."    Woodbury's  Writings,  I,  pp.  178,  179. 


ATTACKS  OF    THE  WHIGS.  357 

ceased  to  be  the  party.  The  attacks  of  the  whigs  were, 
therefore,  incisive  to  the  extreme,  and  the  democrats  had 
nothing  to  oppose  to  them  but  empty  declamation  and  base 
subterfuge.  But  it  was  a  very  different  question  what  guar- 
jmties  the  whigs  offered  that,  under  their  rule,  the  conduct 
of  affairs  would  be  different.  In  all  their  criticism,  there 
was  but  one  positive  point — the  demand  that  removals  from 
office  should  not  be  made  without  a  statement  of  the  reasons 
therefor.  Yet  scarcely  had  they  taken  hold  of  the  helm  than 
they  trembled  as  if  in  a  fever-chill  at  the  remembrance  of 
that  same  positive  element.^  No  other  reason  for  the  evil 
could  be  discovered  in  their  speeches  than  the  unworthiness 
of  the  democrats,  and  they  offered  no  other  security  that  it 
should  be  done  away  with  than  that  of  their  own  worthiness. 
A  weaker  and  more  objectionable  argument  could  not  have 
been  found.  The  people  were  divided  among  the  two  parties 
in  almost  equal  parts.  A  nation  which,  from  a  moral 
standpoint,  is  divided  into  two  equal  parts,  goats  and  sheep, 
and  which  is  also  politically  grouped  according:  to  such  a 
division,  has  never  existed  and  never  can  exist.  If  the  whigs 
had  nothing  more  forcible  to  say  for  themselves,  the  people 
might  properly  have  inquired  with  "Woodbury's  investigating 
commissioner,  whether  it  would  not  have  been  more  prac- 
ticable to  leave  those  in  office  whose  hands  were  already 
"full." 
We  need  not  wonder  that  this  worthless  contrasting  of  the 

'  In  the  house  of  representatives,  June  17,  1841:  "  Watterson  offered 
resolutions  to  call  upon  the  president  and  heads  of  departments  for  a  list 
of  removals,  with  the  reasons  for  them.  He  had  a  long  preamble  of 
wherea-ses,  quoting  from  the  stump  speeches  of  Webster,  Clay,  Bell  and 
Crittenden,  last  summer  —  declarations  that  no  removals  ought  ever  to  be 
made  without  assignment  of  reasons  for  the  removal.  The  whigs  were  all 
in  commotion  at  this  movement  Watterson 's  motion  to  suspend  the  rules 
was  rejected — fifty-seven  to  one  hundred  and  thirty.''  Mem.  of  J.  Q. 
Adams,  X,  p.  481. 


358   Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

two  parties  according  to  their  attitude  towards  the  com- 
mands of  civic  iiioralitj,  seemed  to  tlie  people  to  be  entirely 
in  order.  No  people  has  ever  yet  been  so  highly  developed 
that  the  immense  majority  of  the  nation  has  not,  even  when 
the  temptation  to  do  so  was  weakest,  judged  parties  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  good  or  the  bad,  instead  of  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  right  or  the  wrong;  or  that,  at  least,  they 
have  not  confounded  the  one  point  of  view  with  the  other. 
It  would  be  folly  to  wish  to  reproach  the  people  gi*eatly  be- 
cause a  certain  faith  in  the  alleged  greater  virtue  of  the  wliigs 
was  found  among  them,  so  long  as  this  virtue  had  not  been 
put  to  the  test.  The  growth  of  political  knowledge  keeps  pace 
with  the  growth  of  experience.  But  the  experience  hitherto 
had  was  one-sided,  Not  until  some  experience  had  been  had 
of  the  opposition  hitherto,  could  any  hope  be  harbored  to  see 
the  conclusion  force  itself  on  wider  circles  of  men  that,  guilty 
as  these  individuals  or  those  might  be,  the  ultimate  cause  of 
the  evil  was  not  to  be  sought  for  in  the  turpitude  of  certain 
persons,  but  in  a  defect  in  the  system.  No  one  yet  knew  any- 
thing as  to  how  the  whigs  would  demean  themselves  when 
they  became  the  ruling  party.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 
entirely  beyond  doubt  that,  under  democratic  rule,  much,  and 
that  essential,  had  grown  rotten,  and  was  growing  rottener 
steadily.  And  the  present  administration  had  nothing  to 
show  which  would  have  appeared  to  the  judgment  or  feeling 
of  the  people  as  a  counterpoise  to  this,  worthy  of  their  regard. 
Its  only  really  great  merit,  the  "independent  treasury," 
could  not,  at  the  time,  be  at  all  rightly  appreciated.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  was  altogether  too  strong  an  inclina- 
tion, most  inequitably,  to  lay  at  its  door  all  the  bad  that  had 
happened  during  its  period  of  office.^     On  its  side,  it  had 

'  I  do  not  consider  it  necessary  to  review  Poinsett's  militia  project,  which 
pleyed  a  great  part  in  the  electoral  campaign.  In  my  opinion,  the  whigs 
were  right  in  declaring  it  unconstitutional.    But  it  was  ridiculous  to  swell 


A  OHAKGB  WANTED.  359 

nothing  bat  a  well  disciplined  party  spirit;  against  it,  it  had 
a  feeling  hard  to  circurascribe,  but  at  high  tension.  If  it 
were  the  case  of  an  individual,  we  might  perhaps  say  that 
he  did  not  know  whether  to  laugh  or  cry.  It  would  be  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose  that  a  storm  of  whig  enthusiasm 
had  swept  over  the  country.  And  it  would  be  scarcely  less 
wrong  to  believe  that  people  had  turned  away  in  deep  dis- 
gust from  the  possessors  of  power  at  the  moment,  or  from 
the  distinguishing  principles  of  the  democratic  party  pro- 
gramme. On  only  one  point  were  the  masses  clear,  as  the 
whigs  themselves  acknowledged  with  great  ingenuousness  — 
that  they  wanted  a  change.^ 

it  to  the  dimensions  of  a  deeply  laid  plan  of  the  president  and  secretary  of 
war  against  the  freedom  of  the  country.  I  feel  convinced  that  Clay  was 
guilty  of  demagogical  agitation,  and  that  he  was  not  fully  satisfied  of  the 
truth  of  his  own  words  when  he  solemnly  warned  his  hearers  at  Taylors- 
ville:  "Indefensible  as  this  project  is,  fellow  citizens,  do  not  be  deceived 
by  supposing  that  it  has  been  or  will  be  abandoned.  lb  is  a  principle  of 
those  who  are  now  in  power,  that  an  election  or  re-election  of  the  president, 
implies  the  sanction  of  the  people  to  all  the  measures  which  he  had  pro- 
posed, and  all  the  opinions  which  he  had  expressed,  on  public  affairs  prior 
to  tliat  event.  .  .  .  Let  Mr.  Van  Buren  be  re-elected  in  November  next,  and 
it  will  be  claimed  that  the  people  have  thereby  approved  of  this  plan  of  the 
secretary  of  war."  Speeches,  p.  430.  I  have  not  either  made  mention  in  th« 
text  of  the  variances  with  England,  produced  by  some  things  which  occurred 
on  the  Canadian  boundary.  Important  as  they  were  at  the  time,  they  exer- 
cised no  influence  on  the  internal  history  of  the  United  States,  and  even 
during  the  electoral  campaign  they  fell  into  the  background  in  a  mannev 
which  almost  excites  surprise. 

'  Webster  writes  on  the  11th  of  June,  1840,  to  Mr.  CoflBn:  "  And  the 
first  thing  to  change  this  condition  for  the  better  will  be  a  general  belief 
that  there  is  to  be  a  change  of  administration;  because  men  will  look  to  a 
change  of  administration  and  nothing  else,  for  a  change  of  measures. 
They  expect  relief  from  no  other  quarter.  All  that  keeps  things  now  from 
growing  still  worse  is  the  hope  that  a  change  of  administration  is  approach- 
ing.'' Priv.  Corresp.,  II,  p.  84.  In  his  speech  before  the  whig  convention 
at  Richmond,  on  the  5th  of  October,  1840,  he  exclaims  at  the  close:  "  Yes, 
a  change.    I  said  when  I  was  in  Baltimore,  in  May  last,  and  I  repeat  ik 


360   JACKSON'S  ADMINISTRATION  —  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

This  explains  in  great  part  why  the  scale  vacillated  so 
long  between  the  two  parties,  and  then  sank  with  unusual 
weight  to  the  advantage  of  the  whigs.  In  strange  contrast 
with  their  brilliant  victory,  therefore,  we  see  them  feel  their 
way  uncertain  in  all  the  preparatory  stages  of  the  electoral 
campaign,  and  jeopardize  their  success  by  a  qaiet  but  hot 
contest  among  themselves.  They  were  so  far  from  being 
certain  of  their  triumph,  that  they  became  alarmingly 
anxious  to  give  offense  to  no  one,  in  order  that  they  might 
Unite  all  the  dissatisfied  elements,  whatever  might  be  the 
reason  of  their  dissatisfaction.  And  first,  in  the  choice  of 
persons,  the  fitness  of  candidates  was  subordinated  to  this 
purpose.  And  this  was  done  all  the  more  unhesitatingly, 
as  in  this  way  a  veil  was  obtained  to  cover  the  intrigues 
which  were  plotted  by  the  leaders  against  one  another  fi'om 
personal  jealousy.  The  real  head  of  the  party,  unquestion- 
ably, was  Henry  Clay.  But  if,  on  this  account,  it  was  at  fii*st 
looked  upon  as  almost  self-evident  that  he  would  be  chosen 
leader,  the  last  presidential  election,  on  the  other  hand,  re- 
called  the  fact  that  the  party  by  no  means  considered  it 
necessary  to  select  its  real  head  under  all  circumstances  as 
its  leader.  Much  as  Clay's  sanguine  temperament  inclined 
him  to  take  his  wishes  for  probabilities,  he  did  not  ig- 
nore how  doubtful  it  was  whether  the  realization  of  his 
wishes  was  probable.  When,  in  the  summer  of  1837,  the 
first  formal  inquiries  were  made  of  him,  he  affected  to  long 
greatly  to  spend  his  days  in  the  quiet  of  retirement.     If  he 

here,  the  cry,  the  universal  cry,  ia  for  a  change.  However  well  many  may 
think  of  .the  motives  and  designs  of  the  existing  administration,  they  see 
tliat  it  has  not  succeeded  in  securing  the  well-being  of  the  country,  and 
they  are  for  a  change."  Works,  II,  p.  102.  Clay  says  in  Taylorsville : 
"  They  [the  people]  feel  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  change,  that  no  change 
can  render  their  condition  worse,  and  that  any  change  must  better  it. 
This  is  the  judgment  to  which  they  have  come;  this  the  brief  and  com- 
pendious logic  which  we  daily  hear,"    Speeches,  II,  p.  422. 


clay's  foktunes.  361 

had  really  talked  himself  into  this  position,  it  was  obviously 
under  the  pressure  of  the  well  founded  doubt  as  to  what 
attitude  the  party  would  assume  towards  him  now  that  it 
had  a  prospect  of  success.^  But,  at  the  same  time,  he  could 
not,  from  the  very  fii-st,  conceal  the  hope  that  the  good  will 
()f  the  masses  would  triumph  over  the  manoevers  of  his 
rivals.  He  thought  he  would  be  —  no  matter  what  his  per- 
sonal wishes  were  —  "forced  into  the  presidential  arena," 
:md  relates,  with  scarcely  dissembled  satisfaction,  how  his 
friends  in  New  York  had  begun  to  organize,  notwithstanding 
the  agitation  in  favor  of  Webster.'^ 

Clay's  next  two  years  were  a  continual  oscillation  between 
hope  and  fear.  In  April,  1838,  he  was  entirely  confident;' 
in  Kovember,  he  drooped;*  in  January,  1839,  he  was  in 

'  "  I  have  not,  for  several  years,  looked  to  the  event  of  my  being  placed  in 
the  chair  of  chief  magistrate,  as  one  that  was  probable.  My  feelings  and 
intentions  have  taken  a  different  direction.  "While  I  am  not  insensible  to 
the  exalted  honor  of  filling  the  highest  oflBce  within  the  gift  of  this  great 
people,  I  have  desired  retirement  from  the  cares  of  public  life;  and  al- 
though I  have  not  been  able  fully  to  gratify  this  wish,  I  am  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  comparative  repose,  and  looking  anxiously  forward  to  more.  I 
should  be  extremely  unwilling,  without  very  strong  reasons,  to  be  thrown 
into  the  turmoil  of  a  presidential  canvass.  Above  all,  I  am  most  desirous 
not  to  seem,  as  I  in  truth  am  not,  importunate  for  anypubhc  office  what- 
ever. If  I  were  persuaded  that  a  majority  of  my  fellow-citizens  desired  to 
place  mc  in  their  highest  executive  office,  that  sense  of  duty  by  which  I 
have  been  erar  guided  would  exact  obedience  to  their  will.  Candor 
obhges  me,  however,  to  say  that  I  have  not  seen  sufficient  evidence  that 
they  entertain  such  a  desire."  Mr.  Clay  to  a  committee  of  gentlemen  in 
New  York,  Aug.  6,  1837,  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  417. 

» August  14,  1837,  to  G.  D.  Prentice.     Ibid,  p.  418. 

» On  the  14th  of  April,  1838,  he  writes  to  Fr.  Brooke:  "  In  regard  to  the 
presidential  question,  everything  is  going  on  as  well  as  my  most  zealous 
friends  could  desire.-  PubUc  opinion  everywhere,  even  in  Indiana  and 
Ohio,  is  rapidly  concentrating  as  you  could  wish.  The  movement  at  Har- 
risburg  for  a  separate  nomination  of  General  Harrison,  is  rebuked  and 
discountenanced."    Ibid.,  p.  426. 

*  "  1  should  be  extremely  happy  to  visit  Richmond  and  see  you  and  the 


362  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  tkxas. 

good  spirits  once  more.^  But  he  was  by  no  means  sure  of 
his  case.  Uninterrupted  excitement  seemed  to  have  brought 
him  gradually  into  the  condition  of  the  gambler  who  sees 
the  moment  approach  when  he  must  stake  all  that  is  left  to 
him.  On  the  Tth  of  February,  1839,  he  made  a  great  effort, 
in  his  own  cause,  in  a  speech  against  the  abolitionists.  Nat- 
urally enough,  it  is  not  possible  to  prove  that  he  intended 
this  speech  as  a  sop  to  the  south.''  The  allegation  of  his 
unconditional  followers  that  he  was  a  man  of  such  scrupulous 
honor  that  he  only  wished  to  dissipate  all  doubt  as  to  hia 
attitude  towards  this  question,  is  evidence  of  only  too  ingenu- 
ous a  way  of  looking  at  things.  While  it  was  conceded  that 
there  was  no  occasion  for  the  making  of  this  confession  of 
faith,  which  would,  necessarily,  have  a  considerable  influence 
on  his  prospects,  the  speech,  notwithstanding  its  glaringly 
slavocratic  coloring,  shows  very  plainly  the  endeavor  to  say 

many  other  friends  I  have  there,  but  I  can  not  do  it  while  I  remain  a  quasi 
candidate  for  the  presidency.  A  candidate  in  fact  I  can  not  say,  and  have 
not  said  to  any  human  being  I  would  be.  I  am  strongly  inchned  to  pro- 
mulgate that  I  will  not  be  under  any  circumstances.  How  would  it  do? 
The  principal  objection  which  I  perceive  is,  that  they  would  say  that  I  saw 
the  grapes  were  sour.  But  then,  what  need  I  care  for  anything  they  may 
say?  "    Nov.  3,  18:39,  to  Fr.  Brooke;  ibid.,  p.  431. 

'To  the  same,  Jan.  23,  1839:  "The  spirits  of  my  friends  are  again 
revived,  and  they  think  that  they  see,  in  various  quarters,  indications  of 
the  final  result  which  their  partiality  prompts  them  to  desire,  I  beheve 
myself  that  the  current  in  my  favor,  which  for  the  moment  appeared  to 
be  impeded,  will  again  burst  forward,  with  accumulated  strength."  Ibid., 
p.  439. 

*  "I  said  I  supposed  he  [Clay]  expected  to  propitiate  southern  votes  by 
it.  He  [Colonel  Thomas]  said  he  would  not  get  them;  that  his  only  prom- 
inent supporter  at  the  south  now  was  Mr.  Preston,  but  yesterday  the  most 
fmious  champion  of  nullification.  It  is,  indeed,  curious  that  Preston  has 
avowed  in  a  speech  at  a  whig  meeting,  and  in  a  pubhshed  letter,  that  he 
was  one  of  a  small  party  of  friends  to  whom  Clay  read  his  an ti- abolition 
speech  before  he  delivered  it  in  the  senate."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X, 
p.  116. 


clay's  fortunes.  S63 

something  pleasant  to  all  parties,  and  not  to  be  guilty  of  an 
unpardonable  offense  towards  any.  Clay's  true  position  was 
that  of  a  mediator  between  the  extremes.  But  with  his 
search  after  a  sure  seat  between  the  different  stools,  every 
step  of  his  seemed  too  carefully  measured  not  to  awaken 
strong  doubts  as  to  his  complete  freedom  from  personal 
secondary  aims.  The  only  class  which  he  handled  unmerci- 
fully was  that  of  the  abolitionists  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
term,  whose  number  was  evanescently  small.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  called  attention  to  the  fact  how  many  highly  esti- 
mable people  and  real  philanthropists  were  to  be  found 
among  those  who  went  too  far  in  their  opposition  to  slavery, 
and  did  not  forget  to  recall  how  he  had  himself  worked  at 
one  time  for  gradual  emancipation  in  Kentucky,  while  he 
assured  the  plantation  states  that,  in  tlieir  place,  he  would 
think  just  as  they  did.^ 

The  man  who  wishes  to  please  too  many  people  always 
runs  the  risk  of  displeasing  all.  Clay's  flowery  language 
about  the  evil  of  slavery  and  its  meddling  enemies  at  the 
north  poorly  pleased  the  south;  and  all  of  his  speech  which 
those  enemies  had  ears  for  was,  that  recently  he  was  a  de- 
cided opponent  of  a  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in  Ken- 
tucky,^ and  that  so  far  as  the  plantation  states  were  con- 
cerned he  would  remain  an  opponent  of  any  plan  which  con- 
templated that  end.    He  had  scarcely  materially  increased 

'  "  But  if  I  had  been  then,  or  were  now,  a  citizen  of  any  of  the  planting 
states  —  the  southern  or  southwestern  states  —  I  should  have  opposed,  and 
would  continue  to  oppose,  any  scheme  whatever  of  emancipation,  gradual 
or  immediate,  because  of  the  danger  of  an  ultimate  ascendancy  of  the 
black  race,  or  of  a  civil  contest  which  might  terminate  in  the  extinction  of 
one  race  or  the  other,"    Clay's  Sp.,  II,  p.  412. 

•  •' .  .  .  But  for  the  agitation  of  the  question  of  abolition  in  states 
whose  population  had  no  right,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people  of  Kentucky, 
to  interfere  in  the  matter,  the  vote  for  a  convention  (1837-38)  would  have 
been  much  larger,  if  it  had  not  been  carried.  I  felt  myself  constrained  to 
take  immediate,  bold,  and  decided  ground  against  it"  Clay's  Sp.,  II,  p.  412. 


364  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texa^. 

his  following  in  the  south.     In  the  north,  he  considerably 
diminished  it.^ 

The  real  significance  of  this  speech  of  Clay  of  the  7th  of 
February,  1839, with  its  motives  audits  consequences,  must  be 
sought  for  in  this,  that  we  here  see  the  slavery  question  exert 
a  marked  direct  influence  on  a  presidential  election  for  the  first 
time.  But  that  Clay,  even  if  he  had  not  delivered  it,  would 
have  been  put  to  one  side,  may  be  definitely  asserted.  This 
was  the  work  of  the  intrigues  of  his  enemies  within  the  party, 
which  dated  far  back  of  this  speech.  To  what  extent  Web- 
ster had,  in  the  matter  of  these  intrigues,  a  hand  directly  in 
the  game,  cannot  be  determined,^  but  it  is  incontestable  that 
the  rivalry  between  him  and  Clay  was  one  of  the  principal 
causes  of  these  intrigues.  Both  had  the  most  ardent  lonoiuor 
for  the  presidency,  and  each  wished  to  see  it  fall  to  the  lot 
of  a  political  cipher  rather  than  bestow  it  on  his  rival.^   Clay 

'  "  He  [Colonel  Thomas]  says  tbat  Mr.  Clay  himself  got  up,  and.  he  be- 
lieves, wrote  the  anti-abohtion  petition  from  this  district  upon  which  he 
made  his  an ti- abolition  speech  at  the  last  session  of  congress,  and  that  its 
effect  has  been  to  demolish  his  last  possible  chance  for  the  presidency." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  116.  "  It  cannot  be  concealed,  however,  that 
the  position  taken  by  Mr.  Clay  on  a  recent  occasion  has  created  in  this 
branch  of  tlie  whig  party  [who  entertain  peculiar  views  on  the  subject  of 
slavery]  a  prejutlice  which  cannot  be  overcome."  Address  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Anti-Van  Buren  Convention  of  Pennsylvania,  Niles,  LVII,  p.  191. 
Adams  had  written  on  the  25th  of  December,  1 838,  and,  therefore,  be- 
fore the  delivery  of  this  speech  of  Clay's,  in  his  diary:  "  The  governor  of 
Kentucky  and  the  members  of  the  delegation  from  that  state  in  the  house 
are  now  so  deeply  committed  upon  all  the  slavery  questions  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  get  the  vote  of  Massachusetts  for  Mr.  Clay;  and  his  only  chance 
of  election  is  by  the  southern  and  slave-holding  interest."  Mem.,  X,  p.  77. 

'  The  only  expression  which  has  reference  to  this,  that  I  find  in  Webster's 
correspondence,  is  the  following:  "Our  whig  prospects  are  none  of  the 
best,  owing  to  our  uTCConcilable  difference  as  to  men.  My  opinion  at  pres- 
ent is,  that  our  only  chance  is  with  General  Harrison,  and  that  that  is  not 
a  very  good  one."  Mr.  Webster  to  Mr.  Jaudon,  March  29,  1839.  Web- 
ster's Priv.  Corresp.,  II,  p.  45. 

•Harrison  Gray  Otis  writes,  on  the  11th  of  January,  1839,  to  Clay:  "  Mr. 


THE    "triangular   CORRESPONDENCE."  365 

had  the  advantage  here  to  this  extent,  that  he  was  exposed 
to  no  temptation  to  intrigue.  Webster,  on  the  other  hand, 
could  hurt  Clay  sensibly  without  injuring  himself.  There 
was  no  prospect  of  his  own  nomination.  But  if  he  could 
succeed  in  diverting  a  considerable  part  of  the  party  to  a 
fourth  candidate  with  a  still  smaller  prospect,  the  latter 
might,  perhaps,  by  uniting  at  the  decisive  moment  with 
Webster's  own  party,  turn  the  scales  in  favor  of  the  third 
candidate,  General  Harrison.  Whether  Webster  or  only 
Webster's  friends  are  to  be  made  responsible  for  it,  certain  it 
is  that  this  was  tlie  shrewdly  laid  plan ;  and  it  was  success- 
fully carried  out. 

New  York,  where  the  great  majority  of  the  whigs  were 
unquestionably  in  favor  of  Clay,  was  selected  as  the  base 'of 
operations.  Henry  A.  Wise,  of  Virginia,  calls  the  base  cun- 
ning with  the  aid  of  which  the  project  was  executed,  the 
"triangular  correspondence."  Three  pretended  friends  of 
Clay,  C.  of  Rochester,  S.  of  Utica,  and  T.  of  the  city  of  New 
York,  exhorted  each  other  by  letters  to  do  all  that  was  pos- 
sible for  Clay,because,  in  their  part  of  the  state,  there  was  no 
hope  for  him.  Eelying  on  these  letters  then  each  demon- 
strated, in  his  own  section,  that  all  eiforts  in  Clay's  favor 
would  be  to  no  purpose,  because  he  had  no  prospect  whatever 
in  the  two  others.     The  result  was  that  districts  which  had 

Webster  has  again  disclaimed  lus  privity  to  or  approbation  of  '  The  Atlas  ' 
(which  was  regarded  as  his  organ)  heresy,  and  said  he  thought  it  unlucky. 
.  .  .  •  I  also  apprehend  that  he  thinks  you  did  him  ill  offices  by  favor- 
ing Harrison  at  his  expense,  in  1836,  and  that  you  would  still  promote  his 
(H.'s)  interest  next.  You  will  judge  whether  it  is  worth  while  to  attempt, 
through  friends,  to  have  any  Maircissement  on  that  point.  I  am  also  cer- 
tain that  he  has  no  idea  at  present  of  8a3dng  nolo  episcopari,  though  it 
seems  unimaginable  that  he  expects  any  important  support."  Clay's  Priv. 
Corresp.,  p.  437.  Webster's  attitude  to  Clay  is  here  very  well  described, 
and  it  is  certain  that  Clay  assumed  a  like  one  towards  him.  Adams  says, 
laconically  and  pointedly:  "  There  is  no  good  will  lost  between  Mr.  Clay 
and  Mr.  Webster."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  77. 


366  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

a  decided  preference  for  Clay  put  up  General  Scott  as  their 
candidate.*  As  Wise  relates,  Judge  "White,  of  Tennessee, 
and  other  friends  of  Clay,  intimated  to  him  that  the  plot, 
the  execution  of  which  required  much  time,  might  be  frus- 
trated, if  the  primary  nominations  were  to  be  held  early  in 
the  summer  of  1838 ;  but  he  added,  at  the  same  time,  that 
the  warning  would  be  useless,  because  Clay  had  too  much 
confidence  in  his  false  friends.^ 

The  whig  national  convention  met  at  Harrisburg  on  the 
4th  of  December,  1839,'  to  choose  party  candidates  for  the 
presidency  and  vice-presidency.  Here  the  game  begun  so 
successfully  in  New  York  had  to  b6  brought  to  a  close.  The 
end  was  entirely  worthy  of  the  beginning.  Was  it  a  mere 
matter  of  chance  that  a  delegate  from  Massachusetts  (Spragne) 
made  the  motion  with  which  the  intrigue  of  the  "  triangular 
correspondence  "  was  continued?  The  convention  should  not 
vote,  but  the  delegations  of  the  several  states;  the  result  of 
this  vote  should  not  be  communicated  to  the  convention,  but 
to  the  assembled  committees  of  the  state  delegations;  these 
were  to  report  to  the  convention,  not  when  a  majority  of  the 
delegates,  but  wlien  a  majority  of  the  states,  had  declared  in 
favor  of  a  certain  candidate.  This  motion  was  supplemented 
by  a  proposition  of  Penrose,  of  Pennsylvania,  to  the  effect 


'Mr.  Clay  to  General  Combs,  Washington,  Dec.  3,  1839:  "You  have 
found  a  most  extraordinary  state  of  things  in  respect  to  the  convention  at 
Harrisburg  and  General  Scott.  I  understand  it  to  be  conceded,  by  the  del- 
egates and  members  of  congress  from  New  York,  a  majority  of  whom  have 
waited  on  the  general,  that  eight  or  nine  tenths  of  the  whigs  of  that  state 
prefer  me.  Nevertlieless  they  prefer  to  make  a  nomination  in  conformity 
to  the  wishes  of  the  one  or  two  tenths."    Clay's  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  442. 

'  H.  A.  Wise,  Seven  Decades  of  the  Union,  pp.  165,  166. 

'  This  is  the  usual  but  not  the  entirely  justifiable  designation.  The 
impulse  to  the  calling  of  the  convention  had  been  given  by  the  *'  opposi- 
tion members  of  congress,  without  distinction  of  party."  Niles,  LVII, 
p.  47. 


HABEisom.  367 

that  the  vote  of  the  majority  of  each  delegation  should  be 
considered  the  vote  of  the  state;  and  that  every  state,  with- 
out any  regard  to  the  number  of  the  delegates  who  had  put 
in  an  appearance,  should  cast  its  entire  electoral  vote.^  The 
motions,  indeed,  met  with  some  opposition,  but  they  were 
finally  pushed  through.  "With  what  profound  moral  indig- 
nation had  not  the  whigs,  in  seasooi  and  out  of  season, 
declaimed  against  the  fact  that  Yan  Buren  had  owed  his 
nomination  to  a  crowd  of  creatures  dependent  on  the  execu- 
tive. But  the  democrats  had  never  been  guilty  of  so  bold  a 
mockery  of  the  most  fundamental  democratic  principles. 
With  acts  so  base  and  shameless,  no  faction  had  as  yet  made 
a  fool  of  its  own  party. 

The  convention  entirely  consumed  the  6th  day  of  Decem- 
ber in  completely  aimless  speeches  and  debates,  while  the 
factious  ones  labored  hard  in  the  committee  room  to  help 
the  tertium  quid^  as  Wise,  with  biting  sarcasm,  expressed 
himself,  to  an  election.  Late  in  the  evening, it  was  finally 
possible  to  inform  the  convention  that,  by  means  of  the 
fraudulent  mode  of  counting,  one  hundred  and  forty-eight 
out  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-four  votes  had  been  cast  for 
Harrison ;  that  Clay  had  received  ninety  and  Scott  sixteen.' 
On  the  following  day,  Tyler  was  in  the  same  manner  nomi- 
nated vice-president,  and  the  convention,  in  accordance  with 
usage,  made  the  nomination  of  both  candidates  unanimous. 
The  rest  of  the  day  was  consumed  in  the  making  of  a  great 

'  The  wording  of  the  resolution  is  to  be  fonnd  in  Niles,  LVII,  249,  250. 
".  .  .  A  process  .  .  .  which  is  a  study  for  the  complication  of  its  machinery 
—  a  model  contrivance  of  the  few  to  govern  many  —  a  secure  way  to  produce 
an  intended  result  without  showing  a  design,  and  without  leaving  a  trace 
behind  to  show  what  was  done:  and  of  which  none  but  itself  can  be  its 
own  delineator."  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  204.  Penrose's  sup- 
plemental motion,  of  course,  modified  the  third  point  in  Sprague's  motion, 
but  completely  secured  the  practical  result  aimed  at  by  him. 

•NUes,  LVII,  p.2:0. 


368  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

number  of  speeches,  each  more  disgusting  than  the  preced- 
ing. These  were  the  loud  Judas-kiss  by  means  of  which  it 
was  attempted  to  conceal  how  dirty  the  work  accomplished 
was.  Clay's  honest  friends  exposed  only  their  weakness,  in- 
asmuch as  they  had  nothing  to  speak  of  but  the  self-sacrific- 
ing disposition  and  the  readiness  with  which  they  subordi- 
nated their  personal  wishes  to  the  nnanimity  of  the  party; 
but  they  did  not  have  a  word  expressive  of  hearty  contempt 
for  the  triumphant  sneaks.  These  same,  on  the  other  hand, 
who,  behind  closed  doors,  had  frustrated  Clay's  further  ad- 
vance unseen,  prostituted  themselves  entirely,  for  they 
sounded  Clay's  praise  louder  than  any  others.*     "With  this 

'  Adams  writes  in  his  diary  on  the  8th  of  December,  1839,  the  day  on 
which  he  received  the  news  of  the  result  of  the  Harrisburg  convention : 
"  He  [Galesl  told  me  that  the  nomination  of  Harrison  at  Harrisburg  was 
the  triumph  of  anti-masonry,  and  was  entirely  the  work  of  W.  H.  Seward, 
the  present  governor  of  New  York."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  152. 
This  view  is  certainly  not  entirely  without  actual  foundation.  Clay  writes, 
December  20,  1838:  "In  consequence  of  the  anti-masonic  and  other 
movements,  since  the  last  session  of  congress,  at  the  commencement  of  this 
my  friends  were  a  little  discouraged."  Priv.  Corresp.  p.  432.  And  even 
on  the  12th  of  September,  1837,  Adams  reports  of  an  anti-freemason  con- 
vention in  Washington:  "  I  found  them  in  debate  upon  resolutions  hon- 
orary to  W.  H.  Harrison,  as  past  and  future  candidate  for  the  oflBce  of 
president  of  the  United  States.  ...  It  was  a  convocation  invited  by 
the  anti-masonic  committee  of  Pennsylvania  to  consult  about  a  nomination 
of  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  at  the  next  election."  Mem.,  IX,  p.  372. 
"  This  portion  of  the  whig  party  [the  anti-masons],  particularly  in  Penn- 
sylvania, although  unwilling  to  support  Mr.  Clay,  have,  nevertheless,  dis- 
covered a  decided  willingness  to  make  concessions  to  their  whig  brethren 
by  evincing  a  determination  to  support  another  distinguished  whig.  Gen- 
eral Harrison,  and  have  not  insisted  on  a  candidate  who  had  adopted  their 
peculiar  views  on  the  subject  of  masonry."  Address  of  the  democratic 
anti-Van  Buren  convention  of  Pennsylvania.  Niles,  LVII,  p.  191.  I  re- 
call seeing  a  full  communication  as  to  how  the  anti-freemasons  of  Penn- 
sylvania had  submitted  the  whigs  before  the  convention  at  Harrisburg,  but 
I  have  not  been  able  to  find  it  again,  and  the  dctoils  have  escaped  my 
memory.  Probably,  also,  it  is  not  to  be  considered  a  matter  of  chance  en- 
tirely that  a  delegate  from  Pennsylvania  proposed  the  supplement  to 


WISE  ON  CULT.  369 

discordant  flourish  of  trumpets  the  convention  dissolved, 
without  liaving  sent  forth  a  single  word  which  might  sug- 
gest a  political  programme  to  one's  mind.^ 

According  to  Wise's  account,  Clay  was  intoxicated  when 
the  bad  news  was  brought  to  him  from  Harrisburg,  and  he 
gave  vent  to  his  wrath  over  the  "  diabolical  intrigue "  in  a 
storm  of  wild  imprecations.'    If  the  description  be  not  ex- 

Sprague's  motion.  This  side-play  of  the  anti-freemasons  is,  however,  un- 
questionably to  be  looked  upon  rather  as  an  auxiliary  than  as  the  real 
cause;  and  it  is  certain  that  it  was  not  the  chief  cause  of  the  result  at 
Harrisburg.  The  chief  cause  was  already  patent  in  the  last  presidential 
election.  Adams  writes  on  the  1 1th  of  November,  1836 :  "  The  opposition, 
divided  between  three  talented  aspirants,  neither  of  whom  would  yield  sub- 
ordination to  either  of  the  others,  have  been  driven  in  mere  desperation  to 
set  up  men  of  straw  in  their  places,  and  they  have  taken  up  Hugh  Lawson 
White  and  William  Henry  Harrison,  as  the  Israelites  set  up  a  calf,  and  as 
the  Egyptians  worshiped  oxen  and  monkeys."  Mem.,  IX,  p.  312.  And 
in  November,  1838,  the  "Democratic  Review''  writes:  "Their  [the 
whigs]  two  prominent  presidential  candidates,  though  unquestionably  per- 
fect representatives  of  their  party  principles,  and  men  of  a  high  order  of 
mtellect,  are  already  well  ascertained  to  be  worse  than  'unavailable,'  and 
will  probably  both  be  dropped  — ex  necessitate  rei —  when  they  will  cer- 
tainly only  serve  to  make  the  confusion  worse  confounded  by  the  dissen- 
sions which  will  spring  out  of  their  mortified  ambition." 

'Anderson,  of  Tennessee,  said  later  in  the  senate:  "There  [at  Harris- 
burg] they  solemnly  resolved  that  they  would  make  no  formal  declaration 
of  their  opinions  —  no,  sir,  none.  The  thing  was  to  be  left  to  the  individ- 
ual skill  and  judgment  of  their  partisans."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  163. 
In  the  report  of  the  "  Harrisburg  Chronicle  "  of  the  convention,  to  be  found 
in  Niles,  LVII,  pp.  248-252,  I  do  not  find  any  such  solemn  resolve,  from 
which,  however,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  was  not  formally  adopted.  In 
Niles.  LVII,  p.  219,  I  find  the  following:  "Mr.  Allen  had  read  'an  ex- 
tract from  a  Harrisburg  committee,  in  which  they  represented  as  unneces- 
siiry  and  inexpedient  for  the  convention  or  General  Harrison  to  make  a 
formal  expose  of  their  sentiments,  since  they  were  already  well  known 
throughout  the  country.' ''  The  whigs  of  New  York  discovered  a  ground 
of  justification  which  was  still  better:  "  It  was  not  for  the  whigs,  while 
in  opposition,  to  propose  specific  measures."  Address  of  the  Syracuse 
Whig  State  Convention,  October  7,  1841.  NUes,  LXI,  126.  (In  English 
party  life  this  is  a  current  saying.) 

'  Seven  Decades,  pp.  171,  172. 
24 


370  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

aggerated,  Claj's  demeanor  was  undignified  in  a  high  degree. 
He  bad  tlie  amplest  reason  to  be  angry,  but  he  should  have 
turned  his  anger  not  only  against  his  false  friends  but  also 
against  himself.  The  man  and  the  patriot  should  have  had 
self-control  enough  not  to  lose  sight  entirely,  even  in  the  first 
moment  of  disappointment,  of  the  fact  that  the  personal 
question  in  itself  should  be  considered  of  comparatively  little 
importance.  But  the  matter  of  most  consequence  was  that 
the  party  had  pronounced  sentence  of  death  upon  itself,  and 
Clay  had  his  full  share  of  the  blame  that  it  had  done  so.  He 
had  labored  more  zealously  than  any  one  else  to  bring  all  the 
opposition  elements  together,  and  to  reconcile  their  different 
opinions,  ill  as  they  went  together.  What  was  it  but  the  ex- 
tension of  the  same  principle  to  the  question  of  persons, 
when  the  man  was  selected  as  the  party  candidate  who  had 
the  fewest  opponents?  But  a  party  which  makes  this  prin- 
ciple its  foothold  disclaims  its  own  right  to  existence.  A 
party  which  is  not  held  together  by  enthusiasm  for  an  emi- 
nent personage,  and  which  has  no  positive  prograrame,be- 
cause  it  dares  not  ofier  one  to  the  heterogeneous  elements 
which  compose  it,  is  no  longer  a  party  at  all,  for  opposition 
to  the  prevailing  party  can  never  of  itself  furnish  a  basis  for 
a  party.  It  may,  indeed,  suffice  to  overthrow  the  reigning 
party,  but  the  victory  itself  is,  in  such  a  case,  the  beginning 
of  the  disruption  of  the  victorious  crowds,* 

'  The  following  judgment  on  the  Harrisburg  convention  and  its  conse- 
quences to  the  wbigg,  although  coining  from  the  opjwsite  side,  hits  the 
nail  on  the  head  in  every  word :  "To  have  Jjeen  the  presidential  candidate 
of  his  party  —  to  have  been  the  one  high  object  of  its  devotion,  its  grati- 
tude, its  pride,  and  its  hope  —  to  have  fought  the  battle  manfully  as  its 
acknowledged  head,  even  though  he  might  be  forced  to  sink  beneath  the 
overpowering  weight  of  numbers  —  this  would  have  been  the  '  honorable 
discharge '  which  Mr.  Clay  had  proclaimed  to  be  all  that  he  now  desired 
before  retiring  from  the  service  of  his  country,  a  toil-worn  poHtical  veteran, 
bowed  down  with  years,  and  covered  with  brave  scars.  And  this  was  due 
to  him  from  his  party;  and  we  cannot  dissemble  an  indignant  contempt  — 


haeeison's  ohaeacter.  371 

Harrison  was  a  man  of  honor,  who  had  inscribed  his 
name  in  the  history  of  his  country  by  the  hard  and  able 
work  of  many  years,  both  in  the  council  and  in  the  field. 
Although  the  son  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  patriots 
of  theRevolutionary  period,^  his  fame  and  the  consideration 
in  which  he  was  held  were  not  his  easy  possession  by  hered- 

not  the  less  sincere  that  we  have  but  few  political  sympathies  in  common 
—  for  the  mean  ingratitude  which  has  thus  so  basely  betrayed  him  in  the 
last  hours  of  his  public  life,  to  sacrifice  him,  his  feelings,  his  rights,  and 
his  fame,  to  a  cunning  intrigue,  and  to  a  cold  calculation  of  party  expe- 
diency, which  we  verily  believe  to  have  been  as  shallow  and  impolitic  as 
it  was  heartless  and  false.  In  the  words  of  Fouch6,  it  was  worse  than  a 
crime — it  was  a  blunder.  .  .  .  It  is  in  vain  to  seek  a  palliation  of  this 
ungrateful  abandonment  of  their  long  recognized  head  and  chief,  in  the 
consideration  by  which  it  is  attempted  to  be  defended,  that  another  candi- 
date, notwithstanding  that  personal  insignificance  which  is  alike  his  single 
and  singfular  recommendation,  would  afford  a  prospect  of  success  hopeless 
under  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Clay.  .  .  .  The  strength  of  a  popular 
party  consists  in  its  fidelity  to  its  principles;  and  the  moment  it  yields  them 
to  the  pressure  of  an  apparent  expediency,  and  confesses,  at  the  same  time, 
its  weakness  and  its  insincerity,  by  sacrificing  the  man  who  is  the  one  real 
and  rightful  representative  of  itself,  to  such  shallow  calculations  of  *  avafl- 
ability '  as  have  avowedly  dictated  the  nomination  of  poor  old  General 
Harrison,  that  moment  it  inflicts  a  more  fatal  stab  on  its  own  vitals  than 
any  of  the  assaults  of  its  opponents."  "The  Democratic  Review,"  Febru- 
ary, 1840,  pp.  103,  104.  For  further  interesting  admissions  as  to  the  ex- 
dusiveness  with  which  "availability  "  was  made  the  basis  of  operations, 
see  the  report  of  the  convention  of  "anti-Van  Buren  citizens,"  made  up  of 
"  whigs,  anti-free  masons  and  conservatives,"  held  at  Harrisburg  on  the 
4th  of  September,  1839.  Niles,  LVII,  pp.  46,  47.  In  this  convention, 
Harrison  was  nominated,  and  in  the  resolutions  it  was  declared:  "This 
convention,  entertaining  towards  him  [Clay]  the  highest  regard,  are  never- 
theless constrained  to  say,  thai  they  have  the  most  conclusive  evidence,  that 
this  period  [to  set  Clay  up  successfully  as  a  presidential  candidate]  has  not 
arrived;  and  that  to  use  his  name  now  as  a  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
would  be  as  uiyust  to  him  as  it  will  be  fatal  to  the  hopes  of  patriotism." 
See  also  the  address  of  the  democratic  anti-Van  Buren  convention  of 
Pennsylvania,  ibid.,  pp.  190,  191. 

*  Governor  Benjamin  Harrison,  of  Virginia,  repeatedly  speaker  of  the  con- 
tinental congress,  and  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 


372  Jackson's  administration  ^-  annexation  of  texas. 

itarj  title,  but  the  well  earned  fruit  of  his  own  labor.  The 
Indian  war,  which  caused  Washington  so  many  hours  of 
hardship  during  his  presidency,  determined  the  youth  of 
nineteen  to  drop  the  study  of  medicine,  and  to  don  the  sol- 
dier's uniform.  He  was  afforded  ample  opportunity  to  show 
himself  not  only  a  brave  and  talented  officer,  but  also  to  give 
evidence  of  the  sober  practical  judgment,  the  moderate  and 
yet  energetic  temperament,  and  the  calm  firmness  which  are 
the  most  essential  qualifications  to  guide  the  growth  of  a 
great  civilized  commonwealth  in  its  first  stages  with  success. 
These  are  qualities  from  which  higher  statesmanlike  endow- 
ments cannot  be  inferred  without  any  more  ado,  but  they 
give  one  the  power  to  solve  an  entirely  peculiar  and  great 
political  problem,  which  would  be  tried  in  vain  by  men  pos- 
sessed of  much  statesmanlike  force.  Harrison,  who  at  the 
end  of  the  war  (1797)  left  the  service,  was  appointed  gov- 
ernor of  the  newly  constituted  territory  of  Indiana,^  by 
John  Adams,  after  he  had  been  for  a  short  time  secretary 
of  the  northwestern  territory  and  its  delegate  to  congress. 
His  elevation  to  these  three  positions  was  all  the  more  hon- 
orable to  him  as  he  was,  unlike  the  majority  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  territory,  a  disciple  of  Jefferson's  political  school. 
And,  as  his  political  heterodoxy  had  kept  neither  Adams 
nor  the  territory  from  giving  him  important  political  offices, 
Jefferson  and  Madison  accorded  him  their  confidence,  al- 
though he  had  accepted  office  and  dignity  from  their  politi- 
cal opponent:  he  continued  to  be  governor  of  the  territory 
for  thirteen  years.  These  facts  prove  that,  even  in  his 
young  years,  he  was  not  a  violent  partisan,  and  that  he  knew 
how  to  subordinate  party  interests  to  the  duties  of  his  office. 
He  deserves  all  the  more  credit  for  this,  because,  with  an 
ingenuousness  from  which  the  leaders  of  the  party  were  very 

*  The  territory  embraced  the  present  states  of  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michi- 
gan and  Wisconsin. 


habbison's  chabacteb.  373 

far  removed,  he  accepted  one  of  the  most  radical  of  the  party 
dogmas  in  an  entirely  literal  sense.  Thus,  for  instance,  he 
limited  the  right  legally  belonging  to  him  of  appointing  to 
office,  by  the  principle  which  he  never  violated,  that  only 
those  competitors  should  be  considered  who  could  show  them- 
selves to  be  the  preferred  candidates  of  the  population.  This, 
in  the  primitive  condition  of  a  territory,  might  be  attended 
by  tlie  best  results ;  but  whether  such  a  child-like  idealistic 
democratic  way  of  viewing  things  fitted  one  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  a  great  and  very  peculiarly  constituted  civilized 
state,  was  another  questionl 

The  war  with  Tecumseh  and  his  brother  the  Prophet  led 
Harrison  once  more  into  the  field,  and  made  the  whole  nation 
acquainted  with  his  name.  On  the  9th  of  November,  1811, 
he  victoriously  repulsed  a  nightly  attack  on  his  camp  at  Tip- 
pecanoe, after  a  long  and  severe  struggle.  The  war  with 
England  then  gave  him  an  opportunity  as  commander  of  the 
northwestern  army  to  measure  himself  with  European  sol- 
diers also.  In  the  spring  of  1813,  he  repulsed  the  attack  ef 
the  English  and  their  Indian  allies  on  Fort  Meigs  with  great 
bloodshed,  and  on  the  5th  of  October,  he  defeated  them  on 
the  Thames,  which  defeat,  in  conjunction  with  Perry's  vic- 
tory over  the  English  fleet  on  the  18th  of  August,  brought 
the  border  warfare  in  the  northwest  to  a  close.  It  was  an 
exaggeration  when  it  was  subsequently  sought  to  vindicate 
for  Harrison  the  reputation  of  a  great  general  on  account  of 
these  successes,  but  the  efforts  of  his  opponents  to  deny  him 
all  merit  for  themj  and  even  to  brand  him  as  a  poltroon, 
were  low  and  contemptible.  He  accomplished  what  could 
be  accomplished  under  the  circumstances,  and  if  his  warlike 
achievements  in  what  relates  to  the  number  of  the  killed 
and  wounded,  measured  according  to  the  standard  of  Euro- 
pean wars,  could  be  called  only  victorious  skirmishes,  they 
were  attended,  nevertheless,  by  the  results  of  great  battles, 


374  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

inasmuch  as  they  had  insured  peace  to  a  territory  of  enor- 
mous extent. 

Harrison  remained  about  twelve  years  more,  with  some 
interruptions,  on  the  stage  of  public  life  as  a  member  of  the 
United  States  house  of  representatives  from  Ohio,  as  United 
States  senator,  and  finally,  as  minister  to  Columbia;  but  he 
played  no  important  part,  in  any  way,  in  any  of  these  posi- 
tions. Jackson  removed  him  from  the  last  named  position, 
and  the  deserving  patriot,  now  fifty-six  years  old,  became  a 
small  farmer  in  his  adopted  state,  Ohio,  where,  to  earn  his 
daily  bread,  he  had  also  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  clerk  of 
the  court.  In  the  electoral  campaign  of  1840,  his  opponents 
did  not  blush  to  charge  him  with  hideous  things  of  every 
description,  but  no  one  dared  to  say  that,  in  the  many  high 
official  positions  which  he  had  filled,  so  much  as  an  atom  of 
dishonest  gold  had  cleaved  to  his  fingers. 

One  of  the  crutches  by  means  of  which  Yan  Buren  had 
limped  into  the  vice-presidency,  the  senate  had  furnished 
him  with  by  its  refusal  to  confirm  his  nomination  as  ambas- 
sador to  England.  The  shameful  calumnies  in  relation  to 
Harrison's  political  career,  and  the  insipid  witticisms  aimed 
at  his  honorable  poverty,  now  contributed  a  great  deal  to 
make  him  j)resident.  Louder  than  the  musketry-fire  of  that 
November  niglit  in  1811,  echoed  the  battle  cry,  "  Tippe- 
canoe!" from  a  thousand  throats  in  all  parts  of  the  Union; 
and  the  log-cabin  and  hard  cider  of  the  farmer  were  the  in- 
spiring signs  under  which  the  people  marched  forth  for  him 
to  battle  and  to  victory.  It  is  wrong  that  in  this  cause  only 
for  ridicule  and  blame  was  frequently  found.  It  cannot  be 
ignored  that,  under  the  cover  of  this  disguise,  frequently  an 
unworthy  one,  lay  the  warmly  felt  and  honest  protest  of  the 
people  against  the  belittling  and  defiling  of  real  merit  by 
shameless  party  spirit.  Yet  neither  Tippecanoe,  nor  the  "  log 
cabin,"  nor  hard  cider  pointed  to  any  political  idea.     Harri- 


haeeison's  oharaotee.  375 

son  was  a  name  that  sounded  well,  but  it  had  no  political 
meaning.  Certain  it  is,  that  sublime  personal  honor,  raised 
above  all  suspicion,  should  be  the  obvious  condition  precedent 
to  bringing  a  name  into  connection  with  the  presidency  in  any 
manner.  But  was  it  seriously  believed  that  this  was  a  suffi- 
cient guaranty  that "  Harrison  and  reform  "  would,  in  reality, 
prove  to  be  so  entirely  identical  as  it  was  sought  to  make 
the  people  believe  by  the  election  cry?  Fate  waited  only  a 
few  weeks  to  obtain  the  right  answer  from  the  facts,  and  yet 
no  blame  can  be  imputed  to  it  if  the  short  time  did  not  suf- 
fice to  destroy  the  ominous  illusion. 

How  honest  the  illusion  of  the  professional  politicians  was, 
that  the  doing  away  with  inconsiderate  party  management, 
with  the  loafer  and  corruption  in  the  office-system,  was  in- 
sured, provided  a  conscientious  man  was  placed  in  the  White 
House,  events  will  show  us  hereafter.  But  even  the  profes- 
sional politicians  never  pretended  that  this  reform  was  the 
only  object  of  the  absolutely  necessary  change.  It  was  not 
on  this  account  that  no  formal  programme  was  drawn  up  at 
Harrisburg,  but  because  it  was  too  well  known  that  such  a 
programme  was  unnecessary.  Leaving  the  party  out  of  con- 
sideration, this  claim,  in  what  concerns  the  candidates  for 
the  presidency,  was  a  bold  untruth.  Of  Harrison,  as  a  poli- 
tician or  party  man,  the  people  knew  so  little  that  it  was 
possible  to  debate  to  the  last,  the  question  to  what  party  he 
had  belonged.  His  opponents,  indeed,  told  a  shameless  cam- 
paign lie  when  they  represented  him  as  a  federalist  and  abo- 
litionist; but  that  they  could  venture  to  tell  this  lie,  and 
persevere  in  it  to  the  end,  shows  plainly  enough  in  what  rank 
the  "  statesman  "  Harrison  had  thus  far  really  stood. 

Whether  the  man,  now  sixty-seven  years  old,  had  been, 
when  a  youth,  a  federalist  or  an  anti-federalist,  was,  at  bot- 
tom, a  matter  of  real  indifference,  provided  only  it  could  at 
the  time  be  said,  with  some  certainty,  what  he  in  fact  was. 


376  JACEBON's  ADMINISTBATION ANJJEXATION  of  TEXAS. 

But  on  this  very  point,  it  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  ascer- 
tain anything  further  than  that  he  was  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency.  His  letters  to  Sherrod  Williams  ^  and  Harmar 
Denny,^  to  which  he  always  referred  those  who  made  any 
inquiries  of  him,  were  made  up  essentially  of  general 
maxims,  which  might  very  readily  have  found  an  ^ppro- 
pi'iate  place  in  a  constitutional  essay.  In  the  main,  these 
maxims  were  not  only  correct,  but  they  deserved,  in  the 
very  highest  sense  of  the  term,  to  be  taken  to  heart  just  at 
this  moment.  That  the  president  should  not  belong  to  a 
party,  but  to  the  whole  people;  that  one's  attitude  towards  a 
political  party  should  not  act  as  a  proscription  in  the  matter 
of  the  appointment  to  federal  office,  and  that  such  proscrip- 
tion should  be  brought  to  a  close;  that  the  president,  in 
conflict  with  the  spirit  and  the  letter  of  the  constitution, 
should  not  be  elevated  to  the  dignity  of  a  "constituent 
branch  of  the  legislature;"  that  the  veto-power  should  not 
be  used  as  a  weapon  in  a  stubborn  and  self-seeking  struggle 
with  the  legislature,  but  only  employed  from  honest  consti- 
tutional considerations  to  protect  a  minority  tyrannized  over 
—  and  to  guard  against  obviously  hasty  legislative  action,' 
these  were  principles  which  the  people  could  not  be  too 
frequently  expressly  reminded  of,  and  up  to  which  it  was, 
before  all  things,  important  that  they  should  live  with  the 
most  scrupulous  conscientiousness.  And  precisely  on  this 
account  it  was  only  praiseworthy  that  Harrison  firmly  re- 
fused to  enter  into  any  binding  obligations  in  respect  to 
certain  individual  questions;  for  both  the  position  assigned 
to  the  president  by  the  constitution  and  political  reason 

'  NUes,  LI,  p.  23. 

•Ibid.,  LV,  pp.  360,  361. 

•Besides  the  letters  cited  above,  see  his  letter  of  the  23d  of  May, 
1840,  to  C.  G.  Verplanck  and  others,  and  that  of  the  4th  of  November, 
1836,  to  J.  M.  Berrien.    Niles,  LVIU,  pp.  294,  295. 


Harbison's  pkoqeamme,  37T 

required  that  every  case  which  needed  consideration  should 
be  considered  when  the  moment  for  action  had  really  come. 
However,  if  the  character,  simply,  of  the  personage  in  ques- 
tion were  the  only  guaranty  offered,  and  his  past,  as  an  inde- 
pendently acting  statesman,  resembled  a  large  sheet  of  papet 
on  which  only  few  lines  were  to  be  found,  the  contents  of 
which  were  neither  very  significant  nor  particularly  charac- 
teristic, then  these  generalities  were  not  sufficient  to  justify 
unconditional  confidence  in  his  capacity.  To  state  a  political 
maxim  correctly  and  to  apply  it  rightly  are  very  different 
things.  But  the  moment  Harrison  dropped  the  academic 
tone  and  his  principles  assumed  a  half-way  tangible  form, 
they  produced  serious  doubt  as  to  liow  his  theory  and  prac- 
tice would  agree  with  one  another.  The  observation  of  the 
pei-son  who  saw  in  the  reeligibility  of  the  president  the  only 
roots  of  all  the  evils  of  the  country,  could  not  have  extended 
beyond  that  which  was  most  external,  nor  his  thought  ever 
gone  beyond  the  mere  surface  of  things.  And  to  the  man 
who  endeavored  to  recommend  himself  to  be  president  by 
the  promise  that  he  would  use  all  his  influence  to  decrease 
the  power  of  the  executive,  "the  system  of  mutual  checks" 
which,  it  was  said,  had  found  its  most  classical  expression 
in  the  constitution,  was  a  seven-sealed  book.^     A  thing  more 

'  "  It  has  been  said,  that  if  I  ever  should  arrive  at  the  dignified  station 
occupied  by  my  opponent,  I  would  be  glad  and  eager  to  retain  the  power 
enjoyed  by  the  president  of  the  United  States.  Never,  never!  (Tremendous 
cheering.)  Though  averse  fit)ra  pledges  of  every  sort,  I  here  openly  and 
before  the  world  declare  that  I  will  use  all  the  jwwer  and  influence  vested 
in  the  office  of  president  of  the  Union  to  abridge  the  power  and  influence 
of  the  national  executive!  (It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  sensation  pro- 
duced by  this  declaration.)  Is  this  federalism?  (Cries  of  no,  no,  for  sev- 
eral seconds.)  In  the  constitution,  that  glorious  charter  of  our  liberties, 
there  is  a  defect,  and  that  defect  is,  the  term  of  service  of  the  president  is 
not  limited.  This  omission  is  the  source  of  all  the  evil  under  which  the 
country  is  laboring.  If  the  privilege  of  being  president  of  the  United 
St;t,tes  had  been  limited  to  one  term,  the  incumbent  would  devote  all  his 


378  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

serious  than  the  usurpations  of  Jackson  and  Yan  Buren, 
was  the  settino;  up  of  a  correction  of  the  constitution  in  a 
direction  opposed  to  these  usurpations,  as  a  programme  in  a 
presidential  election.  Usurpations  by  the  executive  were 
always  sure  of  meeting  with  successful  opposition  before 
too  long  a  time  had  elapsed ;  but  it  would  have  been  exceed- 
ingly difficult  to  restore  the  executive  to  his  proper  constitu- 
tional place  as  a  perfectly  coordinate  power,  once  a  president 
himself  had  lent  a  hand  to  cast  him  down  from  that  eminence. 
Harrison  was  right  in  calling  himself  a  democrat;  but  the 
apostles  of  American  democracy  had  not  yet  gone  so  far  in 
their  radical  doctrinarianism.  And  this  might  be  attended 
by  consequences  all  the  more  un salutary  as  Harrison's  argu- 
ment on  his  worthiness  and  fitness  for  the  presidency  proved 
that  he  occupied  the  very  place  on  which  Jackson  had  reared 
the  structure  of  his  autocratic  government.^ 

The  question  whether  a  few  general  maxims  could  prop- 
erly be  considered  sufficient  to  recommend  Harrison  with  a 
good  conscience  to  be  president,  demanded  the  most  careful 
examination  from  yet  another  point  of  view.  Were  those 
who  gave  him  their  votes  really  agreed,  in  good  faith,  that 

time  to  the  public  interest,  and  there  would  be  no  cause  to  misrule  the 
country.  ...  I  pledge  myself  before  heaven  and  earth,  if  elected 
president  of  these  United  States,  to  lay  down  at  the  end  of  the  term  faith- 
fully that  high  trust  at  the  feet  of  the  people."  Speech  at  Dayton,  Sep- 
tember 10,  1840.    Ndes,  LIX,  p.  70. 

*  "It  was  the  voice  of  the  people  which  induced  him  (1836)  to  change 
the  peaceful  and,  to  him,  most  deUghtful  occupation  of  the  husbandman 
for  the  troubles  and  mortifications  incident  to  the  situation  in  which  they 
placed  him.  It  was  the  same  voice  which  had  again  elevated  him  to  an 
equality  in  claims  for  the  most  exalted  office  not  only  in  this  nation  but  in 
the  world,  with  the  two  most  distinguished  citizens  of  our  country  [Clay 
and  Webster].  And  however  willing  he  might  be  as  an  individual  to 
acknowledge  their  superior  attainments  in  the  science  of  government,  he 
could  not  and  would  not  bring  himself  to  a  level  below  that  upon  which  so 
many  honest,  intelligent  and  patriotic  citizens  had  placed  him."  Speech 
at  a  dinner  at  Massillon.    Niles,  LIV,  p.  398. 


HASBISOn's   F£0GBAMM£.  379 

he  should,  iu  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word,  be  president  of 
the  Uuion  and  not  the  head  of  a  party?  Did  the  opposition 
wish  to  be  considered  a  party  only  in  reference  to  the  presi- 
dential election,  and  to  commit  all  else  to  the  future?  Were 
people  so  bold  as  to  wish  to  convince  others,  or  so  foolish  as 
to  desire  to  convince  themselves,  that  the  questions  on  which 
the  battles  of  parties  had  turned  for  years  and  decades,  could 
now  be  treated  as  open  questions?  No  one  made  himself  so 
ridiculous  as  to  give  a  plain  affirmative  answer  to  this  in- 
terrogatory. No  one  dared  to  assert  that  the  opposition 
could  now  obtain  a  sufficient  preponderance  in  congress  to  be 
able  to  efi'ect  a  change  of  the  nation's  politics  in  relation  to 
these  questions,  without  the  cooperation  of  the  president  — 
questions  wliich  continued  the  order  of  the  day  after  the 
election  as  they  liad  been  before.  Hence,  before  the  elec- 
tion, it  must  have  been  determined,  to  a  certain  extent,  how 
far  the  views  of  the  opposition  and  of  their  candidate  agreed, 
or  else  it  was  supposed  that  the  people,  with  a  confidence  ex- 
ceedingly unrepublican,  would  leave  all  to  chance. 

Much  as  Harrison  struggled  against  the  making  of  any 
promises  whatever,  he  could  not,  therefore,  help  expressing 
himself,  to  a  certain  extent,  on  the  most  important  party 
questions.  But  he,  at  one  time,  spoke  in  oracles  which  no 
priest  could  explain,  and,  at  another,  he  gave  expression  to 
opinions  which  it  would  not  have  at  all  done  to  have  allowed 
to  reach  the  ears  of  one-half  of  his  enthusiastic  adherents. 
His  views  on  the  bank  question  might  have  served  as  a  good 
exercise  in  the  guessing  of  riddles.  In  1822  he  declared 
the  charter  of  the  bank  t^  be  absolutely  unconstitutional;* 
in  1836  he  promised  to  sign  a  bank  bill,  provided  public 
npinion  was  in  favor  of  it,  and  that  without  a  bank  "  the 

'  In  an  address  to  his  constituents,  published  in  the  "  Cincinnati  In- 
q  lisitor  "  of  the  17th  of  September,  1822,  and  cited  in  a  letter  of  the  15th 
ol  February,  1840,  of  W.  C.  Rives.    Niles,  LVIII,  p.  9. 


380  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

collection  and  disbursement  of  the  revenue  would  materially 
suffer;"  *  in  1840  lie  declared  the  establishment  of  a  bank 
unconstitutional,  unless  the  powers  granted  to  the  govern- 
ment could  not  be  exercised  without  one,  an  opinion  which 
he  immediately  explained  by  a  reference  to  the  declaration 
of  1836,  which  now,  however,  seemed  changed  to  this,  "  that 
it  was  plain  that  the  revenues  of  the  Union  could  only  be 
collected  and  disbursed  in  the  most  effectual  way  by  means 
of  a  bank."  ^  The  only  thing  clear  in  all  these  expressions  was 

*  In  the  letter  to  Sherrod  "Williams  above  mentioned,  we  read:  "  I  would 
(sign  a  bill,  with  proper  modifications  and  restrictions,  for  chartering:  a 
bank  of  the  United  States),  if  it  were  clearly  ascertained  that  the  public 
interest  in  relation  to  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  the  revenue  would 
materially  suffer  without  one,  and  there  were  unequivocal  manifestations 
of  pubUc  opinion  in  its  favor.  I  think,  however,  the  experiment  should 
be  fairly  tried  to  ascertain  whether  the  financial  operations  of  the  govern- 
ment cannot  be  as  well  carried  on  without  the  aid  of  a  national  bank.  II 
it  is  not  necessary  for  that  purpose,  it  does  not  appear  to  me  that  one  can 
be  constitutionally  chartered.  There  is  no  construction  which  I  can  give 
to  the  constitution  which  would  authorize  it,  on  the  ground  of  affording 
facilities  to  commerce." 

'  "  I  am  not  a  bank  man.  .  .  .  My  opinion  of  the  power  of  congress 
to  charter  a  national  bank  remains  unchanged.  There  is  not  in  the  con- 
stitution any  express  grant  of  power  for  such  purpose,  and  it  could  never 
be  constitutional  to  exercise  that  power,  save  in  the  event  the  powerd 
granted  to  congress  could  not  be  carried  into  eflfiect  without  resorting  to 
such  an  institution.  (Applause.)  ...  I  said  in  my  letter  to  Sherrod 
WilHams  that,  if  it  was  plain  that  the  revenues  of  the  Union  could  only 
be  collected  and  disbursed  in  the  most  effectual  way  by  means  of  a  bank, 
and  if  1  was  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  desii-ed  such  an  institution,  then,  and  then  only,  would  I 
sign  a  bill  going  to  charter  a  bank.  (Shouts  of  applause.)  I  have  never 
regarded  the  office  of  chief  magistrate  as  conferring  upon  the  incumbent 
the  power  of  mastery  over  the  popular  will,  but  as  granting  the  power  to 
execute  the  properly  expressed  will  of  the  people,  and  not  to  resist  it. 
.  .  .  The  people  are  the  best  guardians  of  their  own  rights  [applause], 
and  it  is  the  duty  of  their  executive  to  abstain  from  interfering  in  or 
thwarting  the  sacred  exercise  of  the  law-making  functions  of  their  gov- 
ernment."   Speech  at  Dayton.    Niles,  LIX,  p.  71. 


HAKRI80N   AND   THE   TAKIFF.  381 

that  Harrison  like  Jackson  intended  to  consider  the  wishes  of 
the  "  people  "  as  his  guide  in  the  correct  interpretation  of  the 
constitution,  and  even  as  the  source  of  constitutional  author- 
ity. As  to  the  rest,  every  one  could  discover  in  them  what 
best  suited  him,  as  Harrison  himself  was  afterwards  able  to 
find  in  them  whatever  seemed  good  to  him.  The  former 
actually  happened  also.  "Where  the  opposition  was  in  favor 
of  a  bank,  it  was  self-evident  that  Harrison  would  sign  a 
bank  bill.  Where  the  opposition  would  hear  nothing  of  a 
bank,  it  was  a  slander  to  call  him  the  friend  of  a  bank.^ 

In  relation  to  the  tariff,  Harrison,  as  far  back  as  1836,  had 
frankly  declared  that  he  was  inviolably  committed  to  the 
compromise  act,  although  he  had  once  been  a  warm  defender 
of  protective  duties.'^  This,  however,  did  not  keep  the  spe- 
cially zealous  adherents  of  the  "  American  system "  in  the 
north  from  insinuating,  with  great  clearness,  that  its  resto- 
ration was  one  of  the  questions  the  decision  of  which  de- 
pended on  the  issue  of  the  electoral  campaign.' 

'  W.  C.  Rives  writes:  "  In  regard  to  this  last  allegation  [that  Harrison 
was  in  favor  of  a  national  bank],  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  show  you  pres- 
ently that  it  is  wholly  gratuitous."  Niles,  LVIIl,  p.  9.  What  the  real 
wliigs  thought  on  the  pledging  of  candidates  in  this  respect,  we  shall  see 
in  the  next  chapter. 

'  Harrison  to  Messrs,  Doster,  Taylor  and  others,  Zanesville,  2d  of  Novem- 
ber, 1836:  "I  regret  that  my  remarks  of  yesterday  were  misunderstood 
in  relation  to  the  tariff  system.  What  I  mean  (sic)  to  convey  was,  that  I 
had  been  a  warm  advocate  for  that  system,  upon  its  first  adoption,  that  I 
still  believed  in  the  benefits  it  had  conferred  upon  the  country.  But  I  cer- 
tainly never  had,  nor  never  (sic)  could  have  any  idea  of  reviving  it.  What 
I  said  was,  that  I  would  not  agree  to  the  repeal  as  it  now  stands.  In  other 
words,  I  am  for  supporting  the  compromise  act,  and  never  will  agree  to  its 
being  altered  or  repealed."    Niles,  LI,  p.  189. 

*  At  tlie  Bunker  Hill  monster  convention  of  the  10th  of  November,  1840, 
one  of  the  white  banners  of  the  cavalcade  of  Boston  bore  the  device:  "  A 
protective  tariff!  "  Niles,  LIX,  p.  44.  In  the  description  of  the  "  whig  cele- 
bration at  Erie,"  in  the  "Buffalo  Commercial  Advertiser  "  of  the  12th  of 
September,  1840,  we  read:    "Another  [device]  gave  a  strong  indication 


382  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

These  two  examples  are  sufficient  to  justify  the  charge  of 
the  democrats  that  it  was  the  programme  of  the  opposition 
to  have  no  programme  and  every  programme.  The  ele- 
ments of  which  the  opposition  was  composed  had,  both  as 
regards  their  opponents  and  one  another,  consciously  and 
calculatingly,  laid  aside  all  political  honor  for  the  period  of 
the  electoral  campaign,  while  the  country  virtually  trembled 
under  the  weight  of  their  moral  pathos.  But  we  must  do 
them  the  credit  of  saying,  even  when  we  look  closer  at  their 
candidate  for  the  vice-presidency,  that,  with  the  skill  of  artists, 
they  played  the  part  of  the  chameleon,  which  always  has  the 
color  of  the  spot  on  which  it  is  found.* 

of  the  state  of  feeling  in  the  Keystone  —  that  state  which  relies  so  strongly 
upon  her  manufactures,  and  which  is  beginning  to  learn  something  of  the 
true  American  policy.  It  was — '  A  protective  tariff.'  "  Niles,  LIX,  p.  72. 
'  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  August,  1842,  p.  206,  says:  "They  [the 
whigs]  took  up  candidates  whose  '  availability '  consisted  chiefly  in  the  fact 
that  they  were  not  thus  identified  with  any  one  distinct  set  of  pohtical 
opinions,  the  fact  to  which  their  success  was  mainly  due.  It  was  in  vain 
tiiat  we  might  argue  against  a  national  bank,  and  impute  to  them  the  de- 
sign of  reviving  the  dead  poUcy  of  such  an  institution  —  in  a  section  of  the 
Union  possessing  a  climate  uncongenial  to  that  idea,  we  are  met  by  vehe- 
ment protestations  that  the  imputation  is  a  falsehood  and  a  calumny; 
as  it  was  declared  by  no  less  eminent  a  person  than  General  Harrison's 
secretary  of  the  navy,  Mr.  Badger,  in  a  pubUc  address  to  a  state  conven- 
tion in  North  Carolina.  It  was  in  vain  that  we  might  impute  to  them  a 
probability  of  the  revival  of  a  high-tariff  policy,  when  their  candidate  for 
the  vice-presidency  was  a  man  who  had  stood  next  door  to  Mr.  Calhoun 
himself  in  the  day  of  nullification.  How  could  even  the  charge  of  an  in- 
tended distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  pubUc  lands  be  sustained  in  all 
parts  of  the  country,  in  the  face  of  Harrison's  letter,  pledging  himself  em- 
phatically against  a  disturbance  of  the  compromise  act?  —  evident  as  it 
was  that  without  the  revenue  derived  from  that  source  the  rate  of  duties 
of  that  act  could  not  support  the  government;  so  that  the  promised  main- 
tenance of  that  measure  necessarily  involved  the  retention  of  the  land  fund. 
And  where  could  we  lay  our  fingers  on  the  real  responsible  opinions  of  a 
party,  which  at  the  south,  and  at  particular  quarters  of  the  north,  was  able 
to  exhibit  the  most  satisfactory  evidences  of  diametrically  opposite  senti- 
ments on  such  a  subject  as  that  of  abolition?  " 


ttlee's  NoinNATioN.  383 

People  told  how  Tjler  owed  his  nomination  chiefly  to  the 
tears  which  pain  and  indignation  over  the  issne  of  the  in- 
trigues in  relation  to  the  presidential  candidates  had  drawn 
from  his  eyes ;  *  that  the  enviers  and  opponents  of  Clay 
had  wished  to  throw  a  sweet,  enticing  morsel  to  his  embit- 
tered friends  by  selecting  for  the  vice-presidency  a  man  who 
had  given  so  touching  a  proof  of  his  warm  friendship  for 
the  great  Kentuckian.^  This  anecdote  has  found  a  lasting 
place  in  tradition  as  a  significant  historical  fact,  and  is  one 
of  the  choicest  illustrations  from  American  history  of  tlie 
fact  that  small  causes  sometimes  produce  great  effects. 

It  is  not  precisely  a  characteristic  trait  of  the  nominating 
conventions  to  allow  themselves  to  be  influenced  by  senti- 
mentality of  this  nature,  and  the  rest  of  the  action  of  the  Har- 
risburg  convention  betrays  no  particular  susceptibility  to 
such  impressions.  Besides,  there  was  no  lack  of  political 
magnates,  either  in  the  convention  or  among  the  rest  of  the 
people,  who  did  not  need  to  prove  now,  for  the  first  time, 
by  tear-shedding,  that  they  were  Clay's  warmest  and  most 
upn'ght  friends.  And  yet  the  names  of  only  two  or  three 
men  ^  of  whom  it  was  known,  or  of  whom  it  must  have  been 

'  See, for  instance,  the  attide  in  the  "  New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer," 
inNiles,  LXI.p.  232. 

•  A  member  of  the  New  York  convention  writes  to  the  "  Courier  and  En- 
quirer: "  "These  efifbita [to carry  the  nomination  of  Cnttenden,  Bell  or 
Owen — inmost  cases  we  read  Mangum]— to  secure  the  nomination  of 
some  tried,  staunch,  distinguished  whig,  came  from  the  delegates  who 
had  opposed  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Clay  for  president.  Their  object, 
after  the  selection  of  a  whig  worthy  of  the  vice-presidency,  was  to  "harmon- 
ize and  strengthen  the  party.  But  failing  to  unite  in  convention  upon 
some  distinguished  friend  of  Mr.  Clay  as  vice-president,  the  question  was 
referred  to  the  '  Grand  Committee.' "    Niles,  LXI,  p.  233. 

'  Crittenden  of  Kentucky,  Bell  of  Tennessee,  and  Mangum  of  North  Car- 
olina. Niles,  LXI,  p.  232.  The  "  Richmond  Whig  "  asserted  that  the 
convention  had  Leigh  chiefly  in  mind.  The  latter  contested  thia,  and 
showed  that,  as  far  as  his  own  person  was  concerned,  the  assertion  was 
entirely  baseless.    1.  c 


384  Jackson's  adminibteation — aiinexation  op  texas. 

presumed,  that  they  would  decline  the  honor,  were  men- 
tioned, when,  to  the  snrprise  of  friends  and  enemies  alike, 
Tyler  was  hit  upon.  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  could 
have  been  accomplished  so  easily,  and  certain  that  the 
public  would  not  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  so  easily 
satisfied  with  the  story  of  Tyler's  tears,  were  it  not  that, 
in  the  convention  as  well  as  out  of  it,  the  question  of  the 
vice-presidency  as  compared  with  that  of  presidency  was 
looked  upon  as  a  pure  bagatelle.  If  this  had  not  been  the 
case,  very  many  whigs  would  have  strongly  opposed  this 
choice,  no  matter  how  long  or  how  bitterly  Tyler  might 
have  wept  over  the  treachery  practiced  on  Clay.  They  now 
professed  themselves  satisfied,  not,  however,  on  Clay's  ac- 
count, but  simply  because  the  allies  had  to  be  paid  a  price 
for  their  alliance,  and  because  their  price  did  not  seem  to 
them  too  large,  to  say  nothing  of  its  appearing  dangerous. 

Tyler  had  been  twenty-eight  years  in  political  life,  and 
had  repeatedly  played  so  peculiar  a  part  that  his  name  and 
his  views,  on  the  most  material  questions,  were  well  enough 
known  to  the  whole  nation.  Even  as  a  member  of  the  house 
of  delegates  of  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  he  had  frequently 
found  an  opportunity  to  acknowledge  that  he  belonged  to 
the  more  extreme  advocates  of  the  states-rights  theory. 
When  he  was  in  the  house  of  representatives  (1816-1821), 
the  investigation  set  on  foot  against  the  bank  directors,  and 
the  Missouri  controversy,  gave  him  occasion  to  break  a  strong 
lance  in  defense  of  that  doctrine  in  two  very  important  ques- 
tions. In  the  electoral  campaign  of  1824^25,  he  belonged 
to  the  Crawford  party.  When  it  was  no  longer  doubtful 
that  the  caucus  candidate  could  not  be  elected,  Tyler  ex- 
pressed his  acknowledgments  to  Clay  that  he  had  preferred 
Adams  to  Jackson.^  But  scarcely  had  Adams  entered  on 
the  presidency  than  Tyler  became  one  of  his  most  decided 

'  Clay's  Priv.  Corresp.,  pp.  119,  120;  also,  Niles,  XXXII,  pp.  42,  43. 


tylek's  views.  385 

opponents,  because,  in  his  very  first  message,  he  saw  the 
cloven  foot  of  Federalism  show  itself  with  such  frightful 
distinctness.  His  election  to  the  senate  afforded  him  the 
opportunity  to  battle  for  his  opposing  views  in  a  more  effi- 
cient manner,  and  if  he  did  it,  no  dishonorable  reproach 
could  be  made  him  on  that  account,  although  he  owed  his 
election  to  the  alliance  of  a  dissatisfied  portion  of  the  reign- 
ing party  with  the  friends  of  the  administration.^  He  had 
not  only  given  assurance  that  he  did  not  by  any  means  de- 
sire to  exchange  the  governorship  of  Virginia  for  a  seat  h\ 
the  senate,  but  he  had  laid  great  stress  on  the  fact  that,  in 
all  material  points,  he  shared  the  political  convictions  of  his 
fellow  candidate.'^ 

Tyler's  perversion  from  being  a  conditional  friend  into  a 
violent  enemy  of  Adams  should  not,  however,  be  construed 
as  a  transformation  into  an  unconditional  partisan  of  Jack- 
son. In  the  three  great  economic  questions  of  the  bank,' 
the  tariff,*  and  of  internal  improvements,"  he  supported  his 
administration  to  the  extent  that  it  remained  true  to  what 
was  to  be  considered  the  orthodox  democratic  confession  of 
faith  according  to  the  school  of  Virginia.  When  the  presi- 
dent remodeled  that  confession  to  suit  his  own  ideas,  the 

'  "  We  understajid  that  the  friends  of  the  administration  and  others 
will  support  you  for  the  senate  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Randolph."  L.  Banks, 
A.  Smyth  etc.,  to  J.  Tyler.    NUes,  XXXI,  p.  341. 

« Ibid.,  341,  342. 

»  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,  p.  483. 

♦  Ibid.,  XI,  p.  392. 

'  "  I  was  in  that  congress  which  was  the  first  to  enter  gravely  into  the 
discussion  of  the  constitutional  power  of  this  government  to  make  roads 
and  canals.  I  then  attentively  weighed  all  that  was  urged  by  the  advo- 
cates of  the  system  —  if  system  that  may  be  called  which  is  none — and 
my  decision  was  against  them.  Every  subsequent  reflection  has  confirmed 
the  opinion  then  expressed;  and  the  experience  of  the  last  six  years  has 
satisfied  me,  that,  in  its  exercise,  all  that  is  dear  and  should  be  considered 
sacred  in  our  institutions  is  put  to  hazard."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  X,  p.  567. 
25 


386  Jackson's  ADMiNisTBATioN — ^annexation  of  texas. 

rigid  doctrinarian  believer  from  Virginia  did  not  follow  him, 
but  opposed  him  with  a  decision  which  took  no  account  of 
consequences.  Whatever  judgment  we  may  pass  on  Tyler's 
political  views  and  on  his  later  action  as  president,  the  cour- 
age with  which  he  opposed  the  elevation  of  Jackson's  will 
to  the  dignity  of  a  party  programme  deserves  full  recogni- 
tion. He  neither  lent  his  hand  "to  make  the  press  the 
prominent  subject  of  executive  favor,  as  of  executive  dis- 
pleasure;"^ nor  did  he  now  admit  —  simply  because  he  had 
to  do,  not  with  Adams  and  the  Panama  congress,  but  with 
Jackson  and  a  treaty  with  Turkey  —  that  the  president  had 
the  right,  without  the  previous  consent  of  the  senate,  to 
create  and  employ  diplomatic  agents.''  In  the  nullification 
controversy,  he  took  a  bold  stand  against  the  proclamation 
of  the  president  and  against  the  "  Force-Bill." '  Even  if  he 
did  not,  for  reasons  of  expediency,  approve  the  cx^urse  of 
South  Carolina  entirely,  he  was,  in  principle,  uncondition-. 
ally  on  its  side.*  To  satisfy  the  "just "  demands  of  the  state, 
and  to  abolish  the  "  unconstitutional "  protective  tariff,  that 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI,  p.  231. 

'  Ibid,,  pp.  227  seq. 

«Ibid.,XII,  pp.  65-69. 

*  "  No  escape  from  tyranny  is  left  us,  for  the  act  of  resistance  is  treason, 
and  the  effort  to  secede  or  withdraw  from  a  poUtical  association,  which 
threatens  to  rivet  upon  us  and  our  posterity  the  chains  of  despotism,  is 
rebellion  to  be  put  down  by  force  of  arms.  What  then  remains  to  the 
states  of  this  Union  of  all  their  sovereignty?  I  will  tell  you:  the  right  to 
petition,  and  on  bended  knees  to  ask  for  mercy;  the  privilege  of  the  slave 
under  the  lash  of  his  task  master:  this  is  all  that  remains.  No  logical 
mind  will  deny  but  that  those  are  the  consequences  of  this  pernicious  doc- 
trine (which  claims  for  the  Federal  government  the  exclusive  [ !  ?]  allegiance 
of  the  citizen).  The  equal  to  this  was  never  advanced  in  the  highest  and 
most  pahny  days  of  federalism."  Speech  made  at  a  dinner  given  in 
Gloucester  county  on  the  20th  of  March,  1833.  Niles,  XLIV,  p.  123.  T. 
M.  Sewell  proposed  the  following  toast  at  this  dinner:  "Nullification: 
The  rightful  and,  as  it  has  proved  to  be,  the  efficient  remedy."  Ibid., 
p.  124. 


Tyler's  views.  387 

is  the  course  finally  adopted,  was  the  only  one,  he  was  con- 
vinced, which  the  government  of  the  Union  could  or  should 
take.^ 

The  doctrine  of  nullification  was  indeed  a  heresy,  but  no 
moral  stain  attached  to  its  disciples  in  the  eyes  of  the  party. 
Wliat  made  a  scabby  sheep  of  Tyler,  in  the  pure  democratic 
flock,  was  his  resistance  to  the  new  doctrines  introduced  into 
the  world  by  Jackson's  supreme  pleasure.  He  complained, 
in  1831,  that  he  had  been  reviled  as  an  opponent  of  the  ad- 
ministration, and  that  even  ordinary  courtesy  had  been  re- 
fused him ;  and  the  full  vials  of  party  anger  were  poured 
upon  his  head  when,  in  the  question  of  the  deposits,  he 
made  bold  to  appear  against  the  president,"  and  as  the  re- 
porter of  the  finance  committee  to  absolve  the  bank  from 

'  "  I  thought  I  knew  the  southern  man :  that  he  was  to  be  won  more  by 
gentleness  and  conciliation  than  by  threats  of  violence;  that  he  might  be 
led,  but  could  not  be  driven.  I  felt,  too,  that  he  was  demanding  but  his 
rights,  and  that  however  impolitic  or  censurable  South  Carohna  might 
have  been  in  her  course,  yet  that  she  demanded  nothing  but  justice  — 
sheer  justice.  The  line  of  my  conduct  as  the  representative  of  a  state  that 
had  twice  pronounced,  in  solemn  form,  the  tariff  laws  to  be  unconstita- 
tional,  was,  according  to  my  conception,  clearly  marked  out.  To  the 
demand  for  swords  and  bayonets  and  cannon  and  muskets  and  armed 
men,  to  collect  an  uiyust  and  unconstitutional  tax,  I  had  but  one  reply: 
do  justice;  repeal  or  modify  your  obnoxious  laws;  yield  to  the  wishes  of 
the  whole  south;  do  that  for  South  Carolina  and  the  other  southern  states 
which  England  has  refused  to  do  for  Ireland;  repeal  your  tithe  system, 
imposed,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  parson,  but  the  manufacturer;  by  a 
great  and  noble  act  of  retribution,  set  a  proud  example  to  the  governments 
of  the  earth."    Niles,  XLIV,  p.  122. 

•  "  .  .  .  Can  any  man  find  his  r.pology  for  ratifying  the  late  proceed- 
ings of  the  executive  department,  in  the  mere  fact  that  the  bank  of  the 
United  States  is  a  great  evil;  that  it  ought  never  to  have  been  created, 
and  that  it  should  not  be  rechartered?  For  one,  I  say,  if  it  is  to  die,  let  it 
die  by  law.  It  is  a  corporate  existence  created  by  law,  and,  while  it  existe, 
entitled  to  the  protection  which  the  law  throws  around  private  rights. 
This,  sir,  is  the  aspect  in  which  I  regard  this  question."  Statesm.'s  Man., 
n,  p.  1329. 


388  Jackson's  administration —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  dishonorable  charges  which  the  former  had  made  against 
it,  in  his  official  utterances,  and  represented  as  demonstrated 
facts.'  The  turning  of  the  party  scales  in  Virginia  finally 
brought  about  his  downfall.  He  did  not  obey  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  legislature  to  vote  for  Benton's  "  expunging  reso- 
lution," but  true  to  the  states-rights  democratic  intei*pretation 
of  the  right  of  instruction  which  he  always  represented,  he 
resigned  his  place.^  To  the  last,  he  held  inviolably  to  that 
which,  up  to  the  time  of  Jackson's  administration,  had 
passed  as  the  distinctive  principle  of  the  democratic  party, 
but  in  opposition  to  numberless  others,  he  had  never  denied' 
entirely  his  original  judgment  on  Jackson,  and,  as  years 
passed  away,  he  reverted  to  it  more  and  more. 

If  the  Harrisburg  convention  was  justified  in  speaking  of 
a  sufficiently  well  known  programme  of  the  party,  it  was 
plain  that  Tyler  had  no  place  in  that  body,  to  say  nothing  of 
his  having  a  place  on  its  list  of  candidates.  He  had,  indeed, 
after  he  left  the  senate  of  the  legislature  of  Virginia,  consid- 
ered himself,  as  people  liked  to  express  themselves,  a  whig; 
but  all  that  this  really  meant  was,  that  he  had  acted  with 
the  opposition.  Either  the  only  programme  had  was,  as  has 
been  already  remarked,  to  have  no  programme,  or  the  con- 
vention and  Tyler  played  against  each  other,  and,  with  the 

'  NDes,  XLVII,  pp.  366-368.  Neither  had  he  changed  his  standpoint 
yet  in  the  constitutional  question.  To  Benton's  reproach  that  the  com- 
mittee had  permitted  itself  to  be  made  a  tool  of  the  bank,  he  replied:  "  I 
am  opposed  —  have  always  been  opposed  —  to  the  bank.  In  its  creation 
I  regard  the  constitution  as  having  been  violated,  and  I  desire  to  see  it 
expire.  But  the  senate  appointed  me,  with  othera,  to  inquire  whether  it 
was  guilty  of  certain  charges,  and  I  should  regard  myself  as  the  basest  of 
mankind  were  I  to  charge  it  falsely."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1331. 

» Feb.  29,  1836.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  729.  See  the  causes  alleged 
for  his  resignation  in  Niles,  L,  pp.  25-27. 

•In  the  letter  to  Clay,  mentioned  above,  he  calls  him  "  a  mere  soldier  — 
one  acknowledged  on  all  hands  to  be  of  little  value  as  a  civilian." 


ttleb's  komination.  389 

people,  a  false  game.^  The  final  result  would  necessarily 
have  been  the  same,  in  case  they  were  compelled  mutually  to 
acknowledge  their  colors.  Whether  they  would  even  then 
have  changed  their  colors  to  any  extent,  in  case  the  possibility 
had  been  contemplated,  that  this  might  become  necessary  on 
Tyler's  part,  cannot  be  definitely  ascertained ;  but  if  it  had 
been  done,  it  would  have  been  done  only  because  there  was 
room  for  a  hope  of  victory  only  on  this  supposition. 

Wise^  assures  us  that  Tyler's  nomination  was  a  compro- 
mise arranged,  about  one  year  before  the  convention,  between 
Clay  and  the  democratic  opposition  in  Yirginia."  He  pro- 
duces no  original  documentary  evidence  for  the  assertion, 
but  there  is  external  as  well  as  internal  evidence  of  the  fact 
which  makes  it  appear,  so  far  as  the  chief  thing  is  concerned, 

'  Even  daring  Tyler's  presidency,  Wise,  in  a  communication  to  his  con- 
titituents,  made  the  following  disclosures:  Between  the  convention  at 
Harrisburg  and  the  election,  and  while  congress  was  in  session,  it  was 
found  necessary  to  discover  with  certainty  what  Tyler's  opinions  were  in 
relation  to  the  bank  question.  He,  Wise,  was  chosen  for  this  task. 
Tyler's  answer  "  stated  distinctly  that  his  views  in  relation  to  such  an  in- 
stitution remained  unchanged,  and  that  were  he  president  he  could  never 
sign  a  charter  for  any  such  incorporation  while  the  constitution  remained 
in  its  present  form."  Wise  showed  this  letter  to  Biddle,  of  Pittsburg,  and 
to  other  distinguished  whigs  in  congress,  and  to  them  it  was  left  to  say 
whether  it  should  be  made  pubUc.  "  They  decided  that  Mr.  Tyler's  letter 
should  not  go  before  the  pubUc."  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  Nov.,  1842, 
p.  504.  In  a  note  on  p.  568,  the  "  Review  "  changes  the  story  to  the  effect 
that  Tyler's  letter  '*  was  addressed  to  some  citizens  of  Alleghany  county, 
Pennsylvania,  in  reply  tb  a  communication  received  from  them,  but  was 
forwarded  to  Mr.  Wise  in  the  manner  and  for  the  object  stated  in  the 
sketch."  In  the  Seven  Decades,  p.  177,  Wise  repeats  the  story,  but  with- 
out mentionmg  the  part  he  played  in  it  himself. 

*  Seven  Decades,  pp.  157-161. 

'Ty]er  had  been  a  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency  at  the  previous 
election,  and  he  was  supported  not  by  the  White  division  of  the  democratic 
party  only.  A  convention  of  the  whigs  of  Maryland  at  Baltimore  put 
up  the  '•  ticket "  Harrison  and  Tyler, on  the  22d  of  December,  1835.  Niles, 
XLIX,  pp.  288,  426. 


390  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

entirely  probable.  No  party  had  an  absolute  majority  in  the 
legislature  of  Virginia,  so  that  where  such  a  majority  was 
required,  the  independent  democrats  decided  the  issue.  They 
made  use  of  this  favorable  combination  of  circumstances  to 
hold  the  scales  in  suspense,  with  the  utmost  stubbornness, 
in  the  election  of  a  senator,  because,  to  their  great  surprise 
and  indignation,  the  whigs  voted  for  Rives,  Tyler's  successor. 
As  Wise  relates,  they  then,  for  the  first  time,  allowed  his 
election  to  be  effected,  by  not  voting  when  Clay  had 
promised  to  use  all  his  influence  to  secure  Tyler's  nomination 
as  vice-president.  That  they  would  not  have  surrendered 
their  unassailable  position  without  some  consideration,  may 
be  assumed  with  certainty;  and  what  far-reaching  conces- 
sions Clay  was  now  ready  to  make,  from  reasons  of  expedi- 
ency, his  correspondence  informs  us.^    That  he  recommended 

'  He  writes,  December  20,  1838:  "  On  the  subject  of  his  [Rives]  reelec- 
tion, to  the  senate,  it  would  be  highly  improper  for  me  to  interfere;  but  I 
may  to  you  say  that  those  with  whom  I  have  conversed  out  of  Virginia, 
think  that  it  would  be  attended  with  very  good  effect.  .  .  .  My  own 
opinion  is,  that  with  a  view  to  arrest  the  unfortunate  divisions  which  exist 
among  us,  to  check  the  progress  of  intrigues,  and  to  secure  concentration, 
action  at  Richmond,  by  the  whig  poxiion  of  the  legislature  (including,  if 
possible,  the  conservatives),  is  highly  expedient."  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  432. 
More  comprehensive  and  plainer  is  a  letter  dated  December  26:  "  Those 
out  of  your  state  are  struck  by  the  fact  iiiat  a  cooperation  between  the 
whigs  and  conservatives  will  secure  a  majority  against  the  administration; 
and  that  without  it  the  majority  may  be  the  other  way.  The  object,  there- 
fore, to  be  accomplished,  if  it  be  practicable,  is  to  secure  that  majority  co- 
Speration;  and  to  those  at  a  distance  Mr.  Rives'  reelection  appears  to  be  a 
probable  means.  If  it  be  not;  if  a  hearty  cooperation  can  not  be  produced 
by  it;  if  nothing  is  to  be  gained  but  Mr.  Rives  himself,  quite  a  different 
view  of  the  question  would  be  entertained.  Mr.  Rives  has  himself  no 
claim  upon  the  whigs  but  those  which  arise  from  his  recent  course;  and 
confining  the  question  to  him  alone,  his  expunging  vote  and  former  course 
would  more  than  neutralize  his  recent  claims.  But  a  more  extended  view 
should  be  taken  of  the  matter.  If  he  can  be  used  as  an  instrument  to 
acquire  an  accession  of  strength  that  would  array  Virginia  against  the 
administration,  the  inquiry  then  would  be,  whether  sound  pohcy  does  not 


tyleb's  nomination.  391 

Rives's  election  is  a  fact,  and  it  is  unquestionable  that  Tyler 
and  Clay,  arm  in  arm,  presented  a  better  picture  than  Hives 
and  Clay.  Rives  had  placed  himself  in  opposition  to  the 
administration  neither  as  early  nor  as  decidedly  as  Tyler,  and, 
above  all,  he  had  allowed  himself  to  be  elected  to  the  senate 
to  cast  the  vote  that  Tyler  had  refused  to  cast,  for  the  "  ex- 
punging resolution  "  which  the  whigs  abhorred  from  the  bot- 
tom of  their  heart.  Clay  was  certainly  right  when  he  said 
that  the  whigs  would  always  have  to  remain  in  a  hppeleas 
minority  if  they  wished  to  repel  all  Jackson's  former  par- 
tisans. In  this,  also,  he  did  not  entirely  lose  sight  of  the 
necessity  that  opinions  should  have  undergone  a  change  not 
in  relation  to  persons  alone.  But  it  was  not  from  facts,  but 
from  his  wishes,  that  he  desired  to  obtain  an  answer  to  the 
question,  how  far  those  who  were  converted  from  being 
opponents  of  the  administration  had  advanced  towards  those 
party  dogmas  of  the  whigs  which  would  have  to  be  made 
the  order  of  the  day,  as  soon  as  the  whigs  began  to  rule. 
But  this  was  the  deciding  point.  It  was,  in  itself,  perfectly 
justifiable  that  he  advocated  even  simple  "alliances."    The 

demand  that  we  should  sacrifice  all  feehngs  excited  by  a  highly  exception- 
able vote,  in  consideration  of  a  great  object  to  be  gained  for  the  good  of 
oar  country.  ...  It  is  manifest  that,  if  we  repel  the  advances  of  all 
the  former  members  of  the  Jackson  party  to  unite  with  us,  under  whatever 
name  they  may  adopt,  we  must  remain  in  a  perpetual  and  hopeless  minor- 
ity. Should  we  not  extend  to  the  repentant  in  poUtics  the  same  forgive- 
ness which  the  Christian  religion  promises  to  the  contrite,  even  in  the 
eleventh  hour?  The  difference  between  Mr.  Rives  and  some  others  now 
incorporated  in  our  party  is,  that  their  watches  did  not  run  together.  .  .  . 
It  was  obvious  that  their  [the  conservatives!  position  was  temporary,  and 
could  not  be  maintained  for  any  length  of  time.  It  was  at  a  half-way 
house.  They  must,  therefore,  fall  back  into  the  ranks  of  their  old  associ- 
ates, or  be  absorbed  by  us.  And  it  seems  to  be  a  prevailing  opinion  here, 
to  be  expedient  to  avail  the  country  of  the  services  of  so  many  of  them  as 
we  can  get,  either  as  allies  or  as  part  of  our  consolidated  force.  I  should 
add  that  it  is  feared,  if  be  be  not  reelected,  the  event  will  operate  badly 
out  of,  as  well  as  m,  Virginia."    Priv.  Corresp.,  pp.  435,  436. 


392  Jackson's  administeatiobt  —  annexation  of  texas. 

blameworthy  dishonesty  and  gross  mistake  lay  in  this,  that, 
in  establishing  conditions  of  these  alliances,  it  was  industri- 
ously avoided  to  advance  one  step  from  the  question  of  per- 
^  sons  to  the  question  of  things,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
question  of  persons  was  settled  in  such  a  way  that  sooner 
or  later  it  was  inevitable  that  men  should  have  to  come  into 
severe  collision  with  one  another,  on  account  of  the  question 
of  things. 

This  internal  untruth  in  the  attitude  of  the  united  opposi- 
tion determined  the  very  peculiar  character  which  distin- 
guished the  electoral  campaign  of  1840  from  all  others. 
" Down  with  the  Tarquins — away  with  the  spoilers"^  —  in 
these  words  we  find  the  substance  of  the  entire  electoral 
campaign  on  the  side  of  the  whigs.  But  by  an  exj^enditure 
of  time,  money,  invention,  and  exceedingly  superficial  en- 
thusiasm, such  as  had  never  before  been  made  in  equal 
measure,  this  small  piece  of  metal  was  drawn  out  into  an 
indescribably  long  and  exceedingly  brilliant  thread.  It  was 
the  electoral  campaign  of  monster  meetings,  of  carnival  pomp, 
and  doggerel  verse.  "Every  breeze  says  change,"^  said 
Webster,  triuniphantly.  "The  time  for  discussion  has 
passed,"  exclaimed  Clay,  certain  of  victory.^  Men  did  not  try 
to  awaken  thought,  to  form  and  obtain  well-grounded  convic- 
tions. They  argned  through  the  senses,  and  made  proselytes 
by  the  contagious  influence  exercised  by  the  jubilation  of 
compact  masses.  A  journal  like  Niles^  Register  gave  a  re- 
port of  twenty-three  closely  printed  columns  of  the  conven- 
tion at  Baltimore,  and  of  these,  fifteen  were  devoted  to  a 
description  of  the  procession.     And  this  is  not  an  isolated 

'  Exclamation  of  the  committee  for  the  convention  on  the  battle-field  of 
Tippecanoe.    Niles,  LVIII,  p.  282. 

* "  The  time  has  come  when  the  cry  is  change.  Every  breeze  says 
change."    Ibid.,  p.  168. 

* "  This  is  no  time  to  argue  —  the  time  for  discussion  has  passed  —  the 
aation  has  already  pronounced  its  sentence."    1.  c 


OHABAOTEB   OF  THE   CAMPAIGN.  393 

exception,  but  an  example  illustrative  of  the  rule.  Little 
was  said  of  the  speeches,  and  there  was  little  to  be  said  of 
them;  but  the  inkstand  was  emptied  from  writing  before 
the  description  of  the  processions  on  foot,  on  horseback,  in 
carriages,  with  their  banners  and  devices,  pictures,  log-cab- 
ins, hard  cider-barrels,  canoes,  miniature  steamships,  giant 
balls,. etc.,  was  closed.^    And  what  arguments,  leaving  the 

'  Many  readers  may  like  to  see  a  quotation  here  which  will  make  it  pos- 
sible for  them  to  form  a  vivid  idea  of  these  doings:  "  Allegany,  the  frontier 
county  of  the  state,  was  numerously  represented,  her  delegation  was  attired 
in  the  hunting  dress  of  her  wild  and  extensive  range  of  uncultivated  moun- 
tains, and  they  were  preceded  by  a  flag  of  great  length  bearing  the  in- 
scription '  Allegany '  in  huge  letters;  then  followed  an  immense  ball  ten 
or  twelve  feet  in  diameter,  rolled  forward  by  these  hardy  sons  of  the 
mountains,  under  the  direction  of  Capt.  Shriver.  The  novelty  of  the  affair, 
and  the  neat  mode  adopted  for  propelling  it,  constituted  it  an  object  of 
peculiar  interest  and  attraction.  It  was  pronounced,  we  learn,  even  by  Mr. 
Clay,  to  be  the  'Hon  of  the  day,'  and  permission,  we  further  learn,  has 
been  asked  by  the  New  York  delegation  for  its  use  at  their  celebration  of 
the  battle  of  Fort  Meigs  on  the  8th  of  this  month;  and  on  that  day  it  com- 
menced rolling  in  that  city. 

"  Upon  the  ends  of  the  ball,  on  blue  ground,  were  stars  corresponding  in 
number  with  the  states  of  the  Union,  and  throughout  its  wide  dimensions 
red  and  white  stripes  were  thrown,  upon  which  various  inscriptions  were 
made;  from  among  them  we  caught  the  following: 

"old  ALLEGANY. 

"  With  heart  and  soul 
This  ball  we  roll. 
May  times  improve 
As  on  we  move. 

"  This  democratic  ball, 
Set  rolling  first  by  Benton, 
Is  on  another  track 
From  that  it  first  was  set  on. 

"Farewell,  dear  Van, 
You're  not  our  man: 
To  guide  the  ship, 
We'U  try  old  Tip. " 


394  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

performance  of  tlie  "Down  with  the  Tarquins"  out  of  con- 
sideration, besides  these  political  processions,  could  or  should 
have  been  brought  forward,  since  as  Wise  rightly  said,^  the 

"Tippecanoe! 
And  Tyler  too!" 

was  by  no  means  as  senseless  a  verse  as  it  was  barbarous. 
What  it  meant,  another  doggerel  verse  told  plainly  enough: 

"  National  Republicans  in  Tippecanoe, 
And  Democratic  Republicans  in  Tyler  too." 

And  what  was  the  use  of  other  arguments,  since  these  were 

"  Ye  officeholders,  fed  with  pap, 

Have  very  saucy  grown; 

We  tell  ye,  sirs,  we  don't  like  that, 

And  mean  to  make  it  known. 
"  With  promises  we've  long  been  fed. 

But  do  not  like  the  treat; 

We'd  rather  have  a  httle  bread, 

A  something  else  to  eat; 

Old  Allegany  sent  us  here 

To  bid  you  all '  be  of  good  cheer.* 

"TIPPECANOE  AND  TYLEB, 

"As  rolls  the  baU 

Van's  reign  does  fall; 

And  he  may  look 

To  Kinderhook; 

His  former  friends 

To  other  ends. 
**  Take  care  your  toes 

Ye  loco-fo's; 

As  ye 're  in  trouble 

Ye  may  see  double; 

Having  no  bell 

We  roll  your  knelL 

"stop  THAT  BALL. 

"The  gathering  ball  is  rolling  still, 
And  stQl  erathering  aa  it  rolls."    Niles,  LVIII,  p.  155. 
'  Seven  Decades,  p.  175. 


caiAEAcrrEB  or  the  campaign.  395 

attended  with  the  best  success?  Was  it  not  only  the  desire 
wliich  so  frequently  clings  to  old  age  to  find  fault,  which 
caused  Adams  to  pass  so  acrimonious  a  judgment  on  these 
manifestations  of  universal  "  enthusiasm  ? "  ^  And  it  certainly 
was  not  pleasant  to  be  obliged  to  make  so  much  capital  now 
out  of  Harrison's  military  merits,  after  people  had,  for  so 
many  years,  violently  declaimed  against  the  fact  that  Jack- 
son, a  man  destitute  of  statesmanlike  education  and  capacity, 
had  been  made  president  on  account  of  the  victory  of  New 
Orleans.  If  men  had  to  accommodate  themselves  to  this, 
for  the  sake  of  success,  why  should  they  not  he  overjoyed  at 
the  feeling  which  prevailed  here  and  there,  that  it  was  not 
entirely  worthy  of  a  great  nation  to  achieve  victory  by  such 
means,  if  people  really  believed  in  their  own  assertion,  that 
the  continuance  of  the  rule  of  the  Tarquins  would  be  the 
complete  ruin  of  the  i^epublic. 

What  had  the  democrats  to  oppose  to  the  unexampled  en- 
thusiasm of  the  opposition,  which,  like  a  fire  on  the  parched 
prairie,  swept  everything  before  it?  True,  there  was  nothing 
lasting  in  this  enthusiasm,  but,  for  the  moment,  its  flames 
rose  high,  while  the  democratic  camp  lay  in  the  oppressive 
atmosphere  of  a  cloudy  November  day.  Yan  Buren  had 
been  unanimously  renominated  by  the  national  convention 

•  "  The  members  of  the  Baltimore  whig  convention  are  flocking  to  this 
city  [Washington]  by  hundreds.  The  convention  itself  consisted  of  thou- 
sands; an  immense  unwieldy  mass  of  poUtical  machinery  to  accompliA 
nothing —  to  form  a  procession  polluted  by  a  foul  and  unpunished  murder 
of  one  of  their  own  marshals,  and  by  the  loss  of  several  other  lives.  I  am 
assured  that  the  number  of  delegates  in  attendance  from  the  single  state 
of  Massachusetts,  was  not  less  than  twelve  hundred.  And  in  the  midst  of 
this  throng,  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster,  William  C.  Preston,  senators  of 
the  United  States,  and  four  times  the  number  of  members  of  the  house  of 
representatives,  have  been  two  days  straining  their  lungs  and  cracking 
their  voices,  to  fill  this  multitude  with  windy  sound,  for  the  glorification  of 
William  Henry  Harrison,  and  the  vituperation  of  Martin  Van  Buren." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  282. 


396  Jackson's  ADMiNisTKATioN  —  annexation  of  texas. 

at  Baltimore,*  but  the  enthusiasm  and  assurances  of  victory 
paraded,  were  so  obviouslj  artificial  that  they  made  one 
shiver.  "What  enthusiasm  it  possessed,  the  party  had  ex- 
hausted on  Jackson,  and  it  was  utterly  impossible  for  it  to 
grow  warm  towards  the  smooth,  cool  chief  engineer  of  the 
party  machine.  And  no  attempt  even  was  made  at  least  to 
put  at  his  side  a  person  whose  name  might  exercise  a  charm 
over  the  fancy  or  the  feelings  of  the  masses.  The  last  time, 
even,  the  election  of  the  vice-president  had  devolved  on  the 
senate,  and  now  the  convention  resolved  —  because  of  an 
emharras  de  ricJiesse,  it  said  —  to  make  no  nomination 
whatever.  This  would  hardly  have  happened,  were  it  not 
that  the  democrats,  like  the  whigs,  had  entirely  lost  sight  of 
the  possibility  that  the  vice-president  might  become  presi- 
dent. But  it  also  shows  to  what  extent  the  democratic  party 
was  now  held  together  only  by  the  strong  but  brittle  bonds 
of  party  discipline. 

Even  during  Jackson's  administration,  another  portion 
besides  the  "  conservatives  "  had  separated  from  the  great 
party.  The  equal-rights  party  was  built  up  from  the  ruins 
of  an  ephemeral  "  workingmen's  party  "  ^  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  under  the  leadership  of  G.  H.  Evans,  publisher  of  the 
Workingman's  Advocate  and  the  Man^  and  W.  Leggett, 
publisher  of  the  Evening  Post.    So  tightly  were  the  reins 


'  See  the  account  of  this  convention,  Niles,  LVIII,  pp.  147-152. 

'  *'  It  is  but  tlie  truth  to  state  in  this  place  that  the  workingmen's  party, 
which  arose  in  1828,  and  dissolved  about  two  years  afterwards,  was  the 
progenitor,  to  some  extent,  of  the  equal  rights  party."  Bjrdsall,  The  His- 
tory of  the  Loco-Foco,  or  Equal  Rights  Party,  p.  13.  Tt  is  plain  that  Byrd- 
saJl  will  not  at  all  admit  that,  as  is  generally  said,  the  emancipated  Fanny 
Wright  was  the  real  nucleus  about  which  the  party  was  formed,  or  that  at 
least  she  gave  the  impulse  to  its  formation.  He  takes  no  notice  whatever 
of  this  assertion,  butcites  the  designation,  "  Fanny  Wright  men,"  among 
the  "contemptuous  terms  "  in  which  the  "sentiment  of  aristocracy"  of  their 
opponents  found  expression.    Ibid.,  p.  29. 


THE   L0C0-F0C08.  397 

of  party  discipline' drawn  that  the  reformers  thought  it 
necessary,  at  first,  like  conspirators,  continually  to  change 
the  place  of  their  secret  rendezvous,  and  yet  they  repelled 
the  charge  that  they  wished  to  establish  a  new  faith,  as  a 
hateful  calumny.  According  to  their  own  statement,  all 
they  sought  was  to  lead  the  democracy  back  to  the  teachings 
of  Jefferson  in  their  original  purity,  and  to  conform  their 
practice  to  theory.  This  last  was  their  unpardonable  crime 
against  the  ortliodox  democratic  church.  That  church 
would  have  looked  away  from  the  extravagance  of  their  the- 
ories with  a  shruff  of  the  shoulders,  if  thev  had  not  rebelled 
against  the  iron  rule  of  Tammany  Hall.  On  this  point,  a 
formal  breach  occurred  between  them.  On  the  29th  of  Octo- 
ber, 1835,  they  succeeded,  by  a  well  planned  surprise,  in  de- 
feating Tammany  Hall  completely  in  a  nominating  meeting. 
After  a  long  and  disorderly  scuffle  with  them,  Tammany  Hall 
recognized  the  impossibility  of  carrying  the  nomination  of 
candidates  chosen  in  secret  conclave,  left  the  hall  and  turned 
off  tlie  gas.  But  even  for  this,  their  opponents  were  pre- 
pared. The  candles  they  had  taken  with  them  were  soon 
lighted,  and  illuminated  the  hall  well  enough  to  lead  the 
meeting  to  a  satisfactory  close.  Tlie  saving  matches  (loco- 
foco  matches)  gave  the  party  the  name  of  the  loco-focos;  but 
their  victory  had  no  further  practical  consequence  but  their 
excommunication.  The  new  party  was  arrayed  in  the  habil- 
iments of  a  real  bugbear.  "  Agrarians  "  was  the  accursed 
name  to  be  fastened  on  them,  and  to  make  them  an  abomi- 
nation in  the  eyes  of  all  those  who  took  any  interest  in  law 
or  social  order.^ 

'  "  Led  by  the  same  necessity,  or  pushing  the  same  principles  still  far- 
ther, and  with  a  kind  of  revolutionary  rapidity,  we  have  seen  the  rights  of 
property  not  only  assailed,  but  denied;  the  boldest  agrarian  notions  put 
forth;  the  power  of  transmission  from  father  to  son  openly  denounced;  the 
right  of  one  to  participate  in  the  earnings  of  another,  to  the  rejection  of 
the  natural  claims  of  his  own  children,  asserted  as  a  fundamental  principle 


398  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Care  was  naturally  taken  not  to  define  the  horrible  idea 
too  accurately;^  it  was  sufficient  that  it  signified,  beyond  a 
doubt,  a  monstrous  socialistic-communistic  something.  But 
this  was  doing  altogether  too  much  honor  to  the  loco-focos. 
They  were  honest  radical  doctrinarians,  with  an  admix- 
tm'e  of  ambitious  and  hungry  companions,  who  endeavored 
to  attain  to  power  and  get  to  the  crib  in  an  irregular  way, 
because  thev  did  not  succeed  in  doino:  so  in  the  regular 
manner.  They  did  not  think  of  reorganizing  society  on 
newly  discovered  principles,  even  if  the  literal  carrying  out 
of  their  theories  would,  in  many  respects,  have  turned 
the  world  upside  down.  But  even  force  would  not  have 
been  able  to  carry  out  their  theories  thus  literally  for  a 
single  moment,  and  they  never  harbored  the  wish  to  at- 
tempt to  carry  them  out  by  force.  They  were,  indeed,  from 
the  very  first,  an  entirely  genuine  branch  of  the  tree  of  the 
democractic party,  and  not  a  poisonous  sprig  engrafted  on  it. 
Their  doctrines  were  nothing  but  exaggerations  of  the  dog- 
mas of  the  party.  The  party  opposed  the  national  bank, 
and  the  loco-focos  would  hear  nothing  of  any  kind  of  a  bank 
or  of  any  "  monopoly."  The  democratic  party  opposed  the 
protective  tariff,  and  the  loco-focos  demanded  complete  free- 
dom of  trade.  When  the  former  strujrsrled  for  a  reform 
of  the  currency,  the  latter  favored  only  hard  money.  If 
with  the  former,  the  equality  of  all  men  had  become  a  lying 
form  behind  which  the  despotism  of  the  wire-pullers  lay 
hid,  the  latter  soothed  themselves  with  the  pious  illusion 

of  the  new  democracy :  and  all  this  by  those  who  are  in  the  pay  of  govern-, 
ment,  receiving  large  salaries,  and  whose  ofiBces  would  be  nearly  sinecures, 
but  for  the  labor  performed  in  the  attempt  to  give  currency  to  these  prin- 
ciples and  these  opinions,"    "Webst.'s  Works,  II,  p.  46. 

'  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  subsequently  the  abolitionists  and  republi- 
cans were  branded  by  the  slavocrats  as  "agrarians."  See  especially  the 
article  signed  "  Python,"  in  "  De  Bow's  Review,"  which  the  editor  praises 
in  a  ridicolous  manner. 


THE  L0CX)-FO0O8.  399 

that  the  principle  of  "  natural  equal  rights  "  in  all  things 
could  be  enforced  in  the  life  of  a  great  civilized  state  actu- 
ally and  with  patriarchal  simplicity.^  Under  these  circum- 
stances, it  was  impossible  that  they  should  continue  long  to 
liave  the  proud  distinction  of  a  separate  existence  as  a  party. 
The  loco-focos  voted  down  their  high  pretensions  in  relation 
to  the  consonance  of  theory  and  practice,  and  stood  aloof 
from  the  temptation  to  lift  the  "  regular"  organization  from 
off  its  hinges;  and  the  universal  democratic  church  learned 
not  only  to  tolerate  the  loco-foco  heresies,  but  permitted  it- 
self to  be  inoculated  with  its  poison,  somewhat  diluted,  with- 
out offering  any  great  resistance.  After  a  few  years,  loco- 
foco  meant  only  a  shading  in  the  party,  with  very  indistinct 
limits,  and  at  last  it  came  to  be  nothing  but  a  pithy  expres- 
sion used  by  their  opponents,  which  they  flung  at  those 
democrats  also  who,  like  Van  Buren  himself,  had  at  one 
time  been  severely  and  unmercifully  censured  by  the  real 
loco-focos.*    And  although  we  meet  with  the  name  on  every 

'  See  the  resolutions  and  "  dedarations  of  principles  "  in  ByrdsaJl,  pp. 
27,  39-42,57,  58,  etc. 

*  In  Jane,  1836,  the  democratic  candidates.  Van  Buren  and  R.  M.  John- 
jon,  were  called  upon  to  express  their  views  on  the  principles  of  the  looo- 
Eocos.  A  convention  of  the  latter  said  of  the  answers  received:  "The 
letter  of  R.  M.  Johnson  is  amply  satisfactory,  while  that  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren  is  not  so,  to  any  true  democrat."  And,  therefore,  it  resolved  "that 
the  party  would  adopt  no  presidential  ticket."  Byrdsall,  pp.  60,  61.  The 
whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  represented  Van  Buren  as  an  arch-Ioco-foco. 
The  "Democratic  Review,"  writes  in  October,  1838,  p.  Ill:  "It  must 
have  struck  every  one,  that  as  soon  as  the  opposition  succeeded  in  propa- 
gating extensively  the  beUef  that  the  administration  was  hostile  to  the 
rights  of  property,  it  was  left  in  a  minority,  and  it  can  only  recover  its 
predominance  by  dint  of  disproving  the  accusation."  Still  these  charges 
played  a  part  even  in  the  electoral  campaign  of  1840.  Thus,  for  instance, 
we  read  in  the  resolutions  of  an  opposition  meeting  in  Washington,  of 
the  15th of  February,  1840:  "The  purpose  of  the  executive  to  array  one 
portion  of  the  community  in  hostility  to  another,  by  official  invocations  of 
an  agrarian  and  anarchical  spirit,"  etc.    Niles,  LVIII,  p.  20. 


400  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

page  of  the  history  of  the  period,  the  whole  movement  was 
of  but  very  small  importance.  The  chief  interest  to  which 
it  can  lay  claim  is,  that  it  was  the  first  reminder  that  even 
the  unsurpassable  party  discipline  of  the  democrats  and  the 
selfish  interests  of  professional  politicians  alone  could  not  suf- 
fice to  hold  the  party  lastingly  together.  The  deeper  cause  of 
the  nerveless  halting  position  it  assumed  in  the  electoral  cam- 
paign of  1840,  was  that  these  were  almost  the  only  bands  that 
held  it  together.  A  party  whose  programme  is  limited  only 
to  the  preservation  of  that  which  has  been  already  obtained," 
is  at  the  beginning  of  its  end.  But  the  democratic  party 
had  no  longer  any  aim  the  prosecution  of  which  would  have 
given  it  a  right  to  further  existence.  It  perhaps  succeeded, 
at  times,  in  proposing  to  itself  a  new  aim  in  which  an  idea 
found  expression  that  might,  and  even  must,  have  furnished 
a  basis  for  a  division  of  the  nation  into  parties.  At  present 
it  had  nothing  to  offer  to  the  people  but  more  or  less  un- 
happy attempts  at  a  refutation  of  the  charges  made  against 
it,  just  as  the  opposition  had  nothing  to  offer  but  these 
charges.^ 

'  It  made  a  great  many  promises,  but  said  nothing  of  the  measures  by 
which  these  promises  were  to  be  fulfilled.  "  The  fact  of  his  [Harrison's] 
election  alone,  without  reference  to  the  measures  of  his  administration, 
will  powerfully  contribute  to  the  security  and  happiness  of  the  people.  It 
will  bring  assurance  of  the  cessation  of  that  long  series  of  disastrous  ex- 
periments which  have  so  greatly  afflicted  the  people.  Confidence  will  im- 
mediately revive,  credit  will  be  restored,  active  business  wiU  return,  prices 
of  products  will  rise;  and  the  people  will  feel  and  know  that,  instead  of 
their  servants  being  occupied  in  devising  measures  of  their  ruin  and  de- 
struction, they  will  be  assiduously  employed  in  promoting  their  welfare 
and  prosperity."  Clay's  speech  at  Hanover,  July  10,  1840.  Woodbury's 
Writ.,  I,  pp.  153,  154.  "Carrying  out  the  idea  that  the  reelection  of 
Mr.  Van  Buren  would  be  the  signal  for  the  downfall  of  all  prices,  the  ruin 
of  all  industry,  and  the  destruction  of  all  labor,  the  newspapers  in  all  the 
trading  districts  began  to  abound  with  such  advertisements  as  these: 
'  The  subscriber  will  pay  six  dollars  a  barrel  for  flour  if  Harrison  is  elected, 
and  three  dollars  if  Van  Buren  is.'     '  The  subscriber  will  pay  five  dollars 


THE  OPPOSITION  WINS.  401 

There  was  no  doubt,  long  before  the  election,  that  the  op-. 
position  would  win  the  day;  but  even  the  most  extravagant 
expectations  fell  far  short  of  the  triumph  it  was  destined  to 
celebrate.  Van  Buren  received  only  sixty  of  the  two  hun- 
di-ed  and  ninety-four  electoral  votes.*  But  nothing  could  be 
inferred  from  these  figures  as  to  the  real  state  of  party 
affairs.  The  popular  vote  stood,  one  million  two  hundred  and 
sixty-nine  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty-three,  against  one 
million  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  thousand  one  hundred 
and  thirty-seven.''  A  majority  of  one  hundred  and  forty- 
three  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-six  was  certainly 
very  considerable,  but  no  one  could  reason  himself  into  the 
belief  that  the  regular  democratic  party  was  crushed.  It  had 
all  the  less  reason  to  give  up  all  hope,  as  three  hundred  and 
sixty-one  thousand  three  hundred  and  ninety  more  votes 
were  now  cast  than  had  been  for  the  Yan  Buren  electors  in 
1836.  "Wlien  the  democrats  wanted  to  prove  from  this  that 
the  opposition  could  have  won  only  by  fraud,'  the  attempt 

a  hundred  for  pork  if  Harrison  is  elected,  and  two  and  a  half  if  Van  Buren 
is.'  And  so  on  through  the  whole  catalogue  of  marketable  articles,  and 
through  the  different  kinds  of  labor;  and  these  advertisements  were  signed 
by  respectable  men,  large  dealers  in  the  articles  mentioned,  and  well  able 
to  fix  the  market  price  for  them,''    Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  205. 

'Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  250. 

'Niles,  LIX,  p.  273. 

'The  "  Democratic  Review,"  November,  1840, pp.390,  391,  says:  "On 
the  subject  of  the  actual  frauds  in  the  election,  to  which  the  whole  result  is 
almost  solely  ascribed  by  no  inconsiderable  opinion  among  our  party  —  and 
by  not  a  few  of  those  whom  we  cannot  deny  to  be  better  capable  than  we 
can  claim  to  be  ourselves,  of  foiming  an  intelligent  judgment  in  relation  to 
it  —  we  have  here  nothing  to  say.  We  have  indeed  but  slender  faith  in 
the  political  integrity  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  party  leaders  and 
active  managers  and  manoeuvres,  among  our  opponents  ,  .  .  and  when, 
moreover,  we  cast  an  eye  over  the  long  enumeration  which  has  been  given 
in  the  columns  of  the  democratic  press,  uncontradicted  by  their  opponents, 
so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  observe,  of  the  counties  in  different  states  in 
which  the  number  of  votes  polled  has  actually  exceeded  by  two,  three,  four, 
26 


402  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

was  not  only  ridiculous,  but  they  could  not  themselves  even 
believe  in  the  truth  of  the  statement.'  That  election  frauds 
occurred  on  both  sides  is  very  probable.  This  was  a  charge 
which  the  parties  had  for  years  laid  at  each  other's  door,* 

five,  six,  seven,  eight,  nine,  hundreds,  the  whole  number  of  males  above 
the  age  of  twenty-one,  as  ascertained  by  the  census  of  the  same 
year  ...  we  cannot  but  confess  the  force  of  the  opinion  to  which  we 
have  referred,  which  ascribes  the  general  result  to  simple  fraud  in  the 
election,  as  singly  sufficient,  and  as  alone  adequate,  to  explain  all  the  in- 
comprehensible mystery  attaching  to  it."  Similarly  C.  C.  Clay,  of  Ala- 
bama, in  his  letter  of  resignation  of  the  12th  of  November,  1841.  Niles, 
LXI,  p.  219. 

'  Benton  writes:  "  He  [Van  Burenl  seemed  to  have  been  abandoned  by 
the  people!  On  the  contrary,  he  had  been  unprecedently  supported  by 
them — had  received  a  larger  popular  vote  than  ever  had  been  given  to  any 
president  before!  and  three  hundred  and  sixty-four  thousand  votes  more  than 
he  himself  had  received  at  the  previous  presidential  election  when  he  beat 
the  same  General  Harrison  fourteen  thousand  votes.  Here  was  a  startling 
fact,  and  one  to  excite  inquiry  in  the  pubUc  mind.  How  could  there  be 
such  overwhelming  defeat  with  such  an  enormous  increase  of  strength  on 
the  democratic  side?  This  question  pressed  itself  upon  every  thinking; 
mind;  and  it  was  impossible  to  give  it  a  solution  consistent  with  the  honor 
and  purity  of  the  elective  franchise.  For,  after  making  all  allpwance  for 
the  greater  number  of  voters  brought  out  on  this  occasion  than  at  the  pre- 
vious election  by  the  extraordinary  exertions  now  made  to  bring  them  out, 
yet  there  would  still  be  required  a  great  number  to  make  up  the  five  hun- 
dred and  sixty  thousand  votes  which  General  Harrison  received  over  and 
above  his  vote  of  four  years  before.  The  belief  of  false  and  fraudulent 
votes  was  deep-seated,  and,  in  fact,  susceptible  of  proof  in  many  instances." 
Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  207.  Here  not  a  word  is  said  of  the  fact  that 
in  1836  Van  Buren  and  Harrison  were  only  two  of  five  candidates,  and  that 
White,  Webster  and  Mangum  received,  together,  no  fewer  than  sixty-one 
electoral  votes.  Benton  could  not  have  forgotten  this.  His  exposition 
must  make  on  the  not  accurately  instructed  reader  the  impression  that  this 
silence  looks  very  much  like  a  conscious  and  intentional  falsification  of 
history. 

*  "  I  win  state,  in  brief,  that  the  returning  ofiBcers  and  judges  of  elec- 
tions, friendly  to  the  administration,  have  been  publicly  accused  (1838), 
upon  ample  testimony,  of  making  false  returns,  and  of  otherwise  showmg 
foul  play  in  the  late  elections  in  New  Jersey,  Peimsylvania  and  Maryland. 
And  doubtless  the  same  practices  exist  elsewhere,  under  the  same  vicious 


THE  OPPOSITION  WINS.  403 

and  men  who  were  not  actuated  by  party  spirit  considered 
it  only  too  well  founded.^  But  to  wish  to  charge  that  the 
opposition  in  this  election  had  cast  one  hundred  and  forty- 
four  thousand  fraudulent  votes  more  than  the  democrats 
was  evidently  absurd.  The  opposition  had  no  reason,  on 
this  account,  to  fear  that  the  scales  would  turn  again  the 
next  time,  because  it  would  be  better  understood  how  to 
watch  them  closely.  The  "revolution  "  in  public  opinion  of 
which  it  had  had  so  much  to  say,  was  not  of  great  im- 
portance, spite  of  the  enthusiasm  and  the  large  majorities. 
It  now,  in  the  first  moment  of  intoxication,  forgot  every- 
thing, but  during  the  electoral  campaign  its  leaders  had 
whispered  into  each  other's  ears  that  the  people  were  being 
"humbugged;"^  and  now,  too,  that  all  the  opponents  of 

patrona^  announced  by  Mr.  Buchanan."  R.  Mayo,  Political  Sketches  of 
Eight  Years  in  Washington,  p.  38.  "  Although  I  know  of  no  instance  of 
any  individual  coming  from  another  state  into  ours  to  vote,  yet  I  have  been 
informed,  from  sources  in  which  I  place  the  utmost  reliance,  that  extensive 
arransrements  were  concerted  among  a  portion  of  the  citizens  of  another 
state  to  come  into  Illinois  for  that  purpose  at  our  recent  election  for  presi- 
dent and  vice-president.  .  .  .  The  startling  frauds  which  have  re- 
cently been  perpetrated  in  New  York  and  other  places  for  the  destruction 
of  these  sacred  rights,"  etc.  Messa^  of  Governor  Carlin,  of  Illinois. 
Hazard's  U.  S.  Commercial  and  Statistical  Register,  December,  1840,  III, 
p.  429. 

'  Adams  writes  on  the  19th  of  December,  1838:  "  Charges  of  gross  fraud 
and  corruption  in  the  election  retiums  of  Philadelphia  were  made  by  both 
parties  against  each  other,  ncu/er /o?so  —  both  true.  .  .  .  Fraud  and 
violence  have  thus  been  introduced  into  our  elections  and  have  signally 
triumphed."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  pp.  69,  70. 

•  "  We  shall  choose  General  Harrison,  if  no  untoward  event  occurs  be- 
tween this  time  and  November.  But  we  are  to  have  bad  times,  whoever 
may  be  in  or  whoever  out.  The  people  have  been  cajoled  and  humbugged. 
All  parties  have  played  off  so  many  poor  popular  contrivances  against  each 
other,  that  I  am  afraid  the  public  mind  has  become  in  a  lamentable  degree 
warped  from  correct  principles,  and  turned  away  to  the  contemplation 
merely  of  momentary  expedients,  not  only  in  regard  to  men,  but  to  tilings 


404  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  Jackson-Yan  Bnren  regime  gave  themselves  up  to  un- 
bounded jubilation,  the  old  man  Adams  shook  his  head 
sorrowfully,  and  asked  how  long  it  would  be  before  this 
great  soap  bubble,  with  the  varying  splendor  of  its  colors, 
would  burst.' 

"No  one  knows  what  is  coming."  Such  was  the  label 
of  the  time.  In  the  case  of  both  parties,  symptoms  of 
incipient  dissolution  increased.  If  their  programmes  had 
not  as  yet  seen  their  day  entirely,  it  was  not  from  them  that 
the  binding  cement  in  the  first  place  came.  Parties  strug- 
gled for  supremacy  for  supremacy's  sake.  The  electoral 
campaign  of  1840  was  more  excited  than  any  that  had  pre- 
ceded it,'^  but  in  what  concerns  principles  and  great  political 
idfeas  it  presents,  as  compared  with  all  previous  campaigns, 
the  picture  of  a  desolate  waste.  And  yet  how  different  was 
the  time  from  the  "  era  of  good  understanding  "  which  had 
followed  the  dissolution  of  the  federalist  party!  The  poli- 
ticians were  concerned  only  to  rule,  but  the  political  life  of 
the  nation  was  not  wanting  in  questions  deserving  of  as 
warm,  tense  and  devoted  a  struggle  as  any  question  about 
which  the  battles  of  parties  had  ever  been  fought.  Clay's 
attitude  towards  the  slavery  question  had  cost  him  the  last 
prospect  of  success  in  the  Kew  England  states,  and  the  bold 


also."  Mr.  "Webster  to  Mr.  Everett,  Feb.  16,  1840.  Priv.  Corresp.  of  D. 
Webster,  II,  p.  76. 

'  "  Mutual  gratulation  at  the  downfall  of  the  Jackson-Van  Buren  admin- 
istration is  the  universal  theme  of  conversation.  One  can  hardly  imagine 
the  degree  of  detestation  in  which  they  are  both  held.  No  one  knows  what 
is  to  come.  In  four  years  from  this  time  the  successor  may  be  equally  de- 
tested. He  is  not  the  choice  of  three-fourths  of  those  who  have  elected 
him.  His  present  popularity  is  aU  artificial.  There  is  little  confidence  in 
his  talents  or  his  firmness."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  306. 

•"  The  whole  country  throughout  the  Union  is  in  a  state  of  agitation  upon 
the  approaching  presidential  election  such  as  was  never  before  witnessed." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  351. 


BIRNEY   AND   EABLB.  405 

invention  that  Harrison  was  an  abolitionist  *  stood,  more  than 
anything  else,  in  his  way,  in  the  south.  The  person  who 
wished  to  read  the  future  of  the  country,  from  the  numbers 
of  the  presidential  election  of  1840,  should  not  have  stopped 
at  the  electoral  vote  and  at  the  numbers  which  went  beyond 
a  million.  Weightier  than  these  were  the  not  quite  seven 
thousand  votes '  cast  for  Bimey  and  Earle,  the  candidates  of 
the  liberty  party. 

' "  Among  the  nnmerous  charges  which  have  been  put  in  circnlation 
against  you  by  the  presses  and  partisans  of  Mr.  Van  Buren,  the  two  most 
relied  upon  and  deemed  most  potent  in  the  south,  are  —  that  you  are  a 
federalist  and  an  abolitionist."  J.  Lyons  to  Gen.  Harrison.  Niles,  LVIII, 
p.  247. 

'  Goodell,  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,  p.  471. 


406  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TYLER'S  ADMINISTRATION. 

The  six  months'  jubilee  with  which  the  whigs  had  cele- 
brated the  promised  redemption  of  the  state  in  advance,^  was 
brought  to  a  worthy  close  by  the  inauguration  of  Harrison.' 
Yet  a  glimpse  behind  the  curtain  showed  that,  from  the  mo- 
ment of  victory,  the  rosy  light  began  to  turn  into  the  deeper 
tints  which  announce  to  the  seaman  the  coming  of  a  sharp 
wind  on  the  morrow.  Many  things  suggested  the  fear  that 
the  icy  north-east  wind  which  blew  during  the  festivities  of 
the  inauguration,  was  an  evil  omen. 

The  chiefs  of  departments  were  instructed,  in  the  name  of 
the  president,  through  a  circular  written  by  Webster,  who, 
as  secretary  of  state,  stood  at  the  head  of  the  cabinet,  to  in- 
form their  subordinates,  that,  henceforth,  any  abuse  of  their 
official  positions  for  purposes  of  political  agitation  would  be 
considered  a  cause  for  dismissal.'  Harrison,  therefore, 
seemed  disposed  to  remember  the  promises  of  reform  made 
by  the  party  longer  than  did  Jackson  the  good  advice  he  had 

' "  If  one  could  imagine  a  whole  nation  declaring  a  holiday  or  season  of 
rollicking  for  a  period  of  six  or  eight  months,  and  giving  themselves  up 
during  the  whole  time  to  the  wildest  freaks  of  fun  and  frolic,  caring  nothing 
for  business,  singing,  dancing,  and  carousing  night  and  day,  he  might 
have  some  faint  notion  of  the  extraordinary  scenes  of  1840."  N.  Sargent, 
Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  pp.  107,  108. 

*"The  inauguration  of  WUliam  Henry  Harrison  as  president  of  the 
United  States  was  celebrated  with  demonstrations  of  popular  feeling  unex- 
ampled since  that  of  Washington  in  1789.  .  .  .  The  coup-d'oeil  of 
this  day  was  showy-shabby.  .  .  .  General  Harrison  was  on  a  mean- 
looking  white  horse."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  439. 

•March  20,  1841.    Niles,  LX,  pp.  51,  52. 


TYLB3  AND  BEFOBM.  407 

given  Monroe.  The  character  of  the  president  was  such  as 
to  permit  no  doubt  that  be  honestly  entertained  the  desire 
to  live  up  to  the  principles  expressed  in  the  circular.  But 
if  the  circular  announced  an  irrevocable  resolution,  and  if  he 
remained  really  true  to  it,  he  was,  to  say  the  least,  equal  to 
Jackson  in  iron  energy.  While  Jackson  had  struggled  only 
with  his  opponents,  Harrison  would  have  thus  begun  as  hot 
a  contest  with  his  own  adherents.  But  the  log-rollers  and 
lobbyists  did  not  allow  the  leaders  of  the  party  to  doubt,  for 
a  single  day,  that  to  them  "  change,"  in  and  of  itself,  meant 
the  reform  which  was  demanded  and  promised.  It  was  as 
if  they  could  not  demonstrate  quickly  and  thoroughly  enough 
that  it  was  not  the  personal  turpitude  of  the  democrats  which 
was  the  cause  of  the  evil,  but  that  the  system  itself  was  based 
on  a  wrong  principle  and  suffered  therefrom.  Seven  weeks 
before  the  inauguration,  John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  who  had 
been  chosen  to  be  secretary  of  war,  admitted  that  the  cry  for 
office  convinced  him  that  the  politicians  thought  only  of 
power  and  plunder.^  Clay,  for  personal  reasons,  refused  to 
recommend  any  one  for  office,  but  said  that  even  if  there 
were  forty-eight  hours  to  the  day,  he  would  not  have  had 
time  enough  to  give  attention  to  all  applications.^  Critten- 
den, the  designated  attorney-general,  did  not  see  the  matter 
in  so  bad  a  light — probably  because  he  was  ready  to  admit 
that  many  had  "just  claims."^    Ten  days  in  office,  however, 

'  "  I  am  growing  pretty  sick  already  of  this  thing  of  oflBce  in  my  own 
case,  and  the  increasing  tide  of  application  from  new  quarters  that  daily 
beats  against  my  ears,  gives  me  spasms.  In  truth,  I  begin  to  fear  that  we 
are  at  last,  or  rather  that  our  leading  politicians  are  in  the  several  states, 
chiefly  swayed  by  the  thirst  for  power  and  plunder.  Would  you  think  that 
Senator  Talmadge  is  wiUing  to  descend  from  the  senate  to  the  New  York 
custom-house?  This  is  yet  a  secret,  but  it  is  true!  "  J.  Bell  to  Gov. 
Letcher,  Washington,  Jan.  13,  1841.  Coleman,  Life  of  J.  J.  Crittenden, 
I.  p.  136. 
. »  aay  to  Fr.  Brooke,  Feb.  5,  1841;  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  451. 

'  "  I  begin  already  to  perceive  that  even  he  who  has  x>ower  to  dispose  of 


408  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

sufficed  to  wrino'  from  him  the  confession  that  the  hun£:r7 
swarm  could  be  satisfied  only  by  a  miracle.^  The  crowd  of 
political  beggars  was  so  wild  that  thfey  were  charged  with 
causing  the  death  of  the  president.'^ 

Therefore,  before  the  whigs  could  begin  to  carry  oat  their 
programme,  they  had  ceased,  in  respect  to  one  of  its  most 
essential  points,  to  form  a  compact  party.  And  this  was 
not  the  only  point  at  which  their  internal  dissolution  began, 
before  a  prank  of  fate,  by  an  unexpected  event,  gave  an 
external  impulse  thereto. 

Clay  had  not  sat  in  a  pouting-place  during  the  electoral 
campaign.  He  had,  however,  by  no  means,  gotten  over  the 
mortification  he  had  endured.  The  imputation  that  he  would 
enter  the  cabinet  of  his  more  fortunate  but  unequal  rival,  he 
unconditionally  repelled.  Harrison  approached  him  with  a 
great  deal  of  tact,  but  yet  with  a  certain  reserve  which  be- 
trayed an  uncomfortable  doubt,  bordering  on  distrust,  as  to 
the  attitude  which  the  man  who  had  been  so  many  years  the 
head  of  the  party  would  assume  towards  him.*    Clay  took 

all  the  offices,  is  only  made  to  feel  more  sensibly  the  poverty  of  his  means 
to  satisfy  the  just  claims  of  his  friends.  Although,  as  yet,  it  does  not  seem 
to  me  that  any  extraordinary  avidity  for  office  has  been  disclosed,  yet  I 
must  confess  that  the  number  of  claimants  far  surpasses  my  expectation." 
Crittenden  to  Gov.  Letcher,  Jan.  25,  1841;  Coleman,  1.  c,  I,  p.  140. 

*  "  We  are  laboring  along  and  endeavoring  to  keep  the  peace  among  the 
office-seekers;  but  nothing  less  than  a  miracle  could  so  multiply  our  offices 
and  patronage  as  to  enable  us  to  feed  the  hungry  crowd  that  are  pressed 
upon  us."  Crittenden  to  Gov.  Letcher,  March  14,  1841;  Coleman,  I, 
p.  149. 

*  Sargent,  PubUc  Men  and  Events,  11,  p.  121,  mentions  this  charge,  and 
with  comical  gravity  proves  its  groundlessness.  Woodbury  said  in  the 
senate  in  June,  1841 :  "  They  [the  vandal  hordes  of  office-seekers]  are  rep- 
resented as  more  voracious  for  office  than  the  most  famished  harpies,  an  1 
to  have  helped  destroy  already  one  president,  and,  if  not  made  of  iron, 
will  embitter  the  life  of  his  successor."     Woodb.'s  Writ.,  I,  p.  12S. 

•In  a  letter  of  the  15th  of  November,  1840,  Harrison  leaves  it  to  Clay  to 
decide  whether  they  would  not  do  best  to  exchange  views  through  the  me- 


TTLEB  AJSD   EEFOBM.  409 

the  hand  that  was  tendered  him,  with  an  equal  degree  of 
reserve.  He  assured  Harrison  of  his  honest  support,  and 
promised,  always  to  let  him  know  first  wliat  attitude  he 
thought  of  assuming  on  important  questions.  But  he  warned 
him,  at  the  same  time,  against  lending  his  ear  to  the  intriguers 
who  were  already  endeavoring  to  force  them  apart,  and  who 
would,  in  the  future,  strive  still  harder  to  incense  them 
against  each  other. 

There  was  good  reason  for  the  warn  nig.  In  a  letter  to 
the  presidentjof  the  15th  of  March,  1841,  Clay  complained, 
in  a  bitter  and  angry  tone,  that  the  latter  had,  a  few  days  be- 
fore, intimated  to  him  that  people  were  afraid  that  he  (^Clay) 
wanted  to  play  the  part  of  mentor  to  the  new  administration.* 
Harrison,  on  the  contrary,  as  Sargent  relates,  requested  Clay 
to  avoid  fi-equent  interviews  with  him,  and  rather  to  deal 
with  him  in  writing." 

Clay  was  wrong  in  attributing  his  differences  with  the 
president  entirely  to  tale-bearers,  busy  as  these,  in  all  proba- 
bility, were.  Little  as  Harrison  was  free  from  over-estimating 
himself,  he  sufiiciently  appreciated  Clay's  intellectual  supe- 
riority, and  the  advantage  which  experience  and  his  well- 
earned  position  in  the  party  gave  him,  not  to  be  able  to 
divest  himself  of  the  fear  that  the  ambitious  and  hot-blooded 
Kentuckian  would  feel  tempted  to  make  him  play  the  part 
9f  a  figurant.  That  Clay  could  not  and  would  not  entirely 
forget  his  own  personality,  in  the  interest  of  the  country  or 
of  party,  he  had  shown  by  his  refusal  to  enter  the  adminis- 
tration. And  if  he,  notwithstanding,  remained  in  the  senate, 
he  certainly  did  not  think  of  surrendering  the  leadership 

diation  of  a  mutual  friend,  since  their  '*  personal  meeting  mi^bfc  give  rise 
to  speculations,  and  even  jealousies,  which  it  might  be  well  to  avoid." 
Clay,  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  446. 

'  Clay,  Priv.  Corresp.,  pp.  452,  453. 

» Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  p.  116.    • 


410  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

there.  This  was  all  the  less  to  be  expected, as  hisouly  equal 
rival  now  held  the  helm.  Public  opinion  was  certainly  cor- 
rect in  the  conviction  that  Clay  and  Webster  would  very 
eagerly  strive  for  the  presidency,  now  as  well  as  before.  And 
between  them  stood  the  fortunate  possessor  with  the  secret, 
gnawing  feeling  that  he  was  indebted  for  his  triumpli  over 
the  two  "giants"  to  his  harmless  mediocrity.^  This  situa- 
tion was  created  by  the  Harrisburg  convention,  and  it  neces- 
sarily involved  strife,  or  at  least  a  quiet  but  earnest  under- 
hand game  of  chess.  Now,  Clay's  greatest  weakness  in 
political  tactics  was  always  that  he  did  not  know  how  to 
hold  himself  back  when  it  was  his  duty  to  do  so.  Why 
should  he  now  have  left  the  field  entirely,  from  the  first,  to 
the  allied  opponents?^  Even  if  calm  deliberation  should 
have  made  him  doubtful  whether  such  was  not,  after  all, 
the  wisest  course,  his  temperament  would  never  have  al- 
lowed the  thought  to  be  acted  on.  The  moment  he  became 
certain  that  the  next  four  years  belonged  to  the  whigs,  hia 
temperament  misled  him  to  proclaim,  with  imprudent 
warmth  and  offensive  bluntness,  what  a  clean  sweep  was  to 
be  made,  and  that  he  intended  to  handle  the  broom  himself. 
"  Clay  crows  too  much  over  a  fallen  foe,"  writes  Adams  in 
his  diary .^  On  the  14:th  of  December,  1840,  he  moved  that 
the  law  relating:  to  the  independent  treasury  should  be  abol- 
ished "immediately."*  That  this  congress  would  not  accede 

'According  to  Sargent,  II,  p.  114,  Harrison  intended  to  offer  noplace 
in  his  cabinet  to  Webster,  after  Clay  had  declined  his  call,  but  that  the 
latter  had  made  him  change  his  mind.  Clay  also,  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  447, 
intimates  the  same,  but  doss  not  clearly  express  it. 

*That  Clay  now  announced  that  he  intended  to  remain  only  a  short  time 
in  the  senate,  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  of  importance.  He  often  made  such 
•assertions  without  considering  himself  bound  by  them  in  any  way.  And 
if,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  soon  retired  to  private  life,  the  fact  proves  noth- 
ing, since  the  situation  had  then  entirely  changed. 

» Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  387. 

« Deb,  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p,  158. 


TYLEK   AJfD   KEFOKM.  411 

to  the  proposal,  there  was  so  little  doubt,  that  it  was  looked 
upon  only  as  a  scornful  cry  of  victory.  Considering  the 
absence  of  tact  and  the  evidence  of  bad  taste  it  displayed, 
it  might  have  been  dismissed  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 
But  Clay  grounded  his  praposition  on  the  claim,  that  the 
people  had  declared,  in  the  election,  by  an  immense  ma- 
jority, against  the  independent  treasury.^  Calhoun  entered 
his  most  energetic  protest  against  this  mode  of  argument,to 
which  the  whigs  had  fully  committed  themselves,  and 
against  which  they  had  fiercely  fought,  during  Jackson's  ad- 
ministration.* As  if  because  the  whigs  were  now  in  com- 
mand, the  whirlpools  in  the  sea  of  public  affairs  had  grown 
less  violent  or  its  rocks  had  become  less  dangerous.  The 
interpretation  to  put  on  Clay's  course  was  that,  so  far  as  it 
depended  on  him,  moderation  and  self-control  were  not  to  be 
expected  from  the  next  congress.  So  far  as  Harrison  was 
true  to  his  promise  to  be  the  president  not  of  a  party  but  of 
the  nation,  the  inevitableness  of  a  conflict  between  the  official 
and  the  actual  head  of  the  whigs  was  a  foregone  conclusion, 
and  this  irrespective  of  personal  relations. 

What  attitude  the  people  would  assume  in  such  a  conflict 
could  not  be  accurately  told  in  advance,  for  the  people,  in 

* "  .  .  .  but  on  one  point  it  was  impossible  there  could  be  diversity 
of  opinion,  either  here  or  elsewhere,  and  that  is,  that  this  nation,  by  one 
of  the  most  tremendous  majorities  ever  given  in  our  nation's  annals,  what- 
ever else  it  may  have  decided,  has  decided  against  this  sub-treasuiy 
measure."    1.  c. 

' "  The  election  decided  nothing  but  that  General  Harrison  should  be 
elected  president  for  the  next  term;  and  he  entered  his  solemn  protest 
against  the  attempt  to  make  any  other  inference  the  basis  of  our  ofBdal 
action;  and,  in  doing  so,  he  but  took  the  ground  taken  by  the  senator 
[Clayl  and  those  with  whom  he  acted,  when  it  was  attempted  to  construe 
in  a  similar  manner  a  former  election  to  have  decided  against  the  renewal 
of  the  charter  of  the  United  States  bank,  and  in  favor  of  certain  measures 
to  which  he  was  opposed.  He  regarded  every  attempt  at  such  inference 
to  be  dangei-ous  and  unconstitutional."    Ibid., p.  161. 


412  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

fact,  had  only  decided  that  there  should  be  a  cliange,  and 
had  effected  the  change,  in  accordance  with  the  dictates  of 
the  politician?,  under  the  aegis  of  Harrison.^  Harrison's 
death,  after  a  short  illness,  and  precisely  one  month  after  his 
inauguration,  therefore,  made, at  bottom,  no  difference  in  the 
real  decision  of  the  people.  Spite  of  this,  his  death  made  a 
very  deep  impression  throughout  the  entire  country,  one  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  estimation  in  which  he  was  person- 
ally held.  No  president  had  ever  before  died  in  office. 
Hence  the  provisions  of  the  constitution  which,  in  such  case, 
transferred  the  functions  of  the  president  to  the  vice-presi- 
dent, were  for  the  first  time  subjected  to  a  practical  test. 
From  the  most  various  quarters  people  hastened  to  say  how 
completely  they  had  lost  sight  of  the  possibility  of  such  a 
contingency.'*  No  one  questioned  the  fact,  but  the  fact  was 
no  excuse.  Yet,  of  itself,  it  does  not  suffice  to  explain  the 
intense  excitement  with  which  both  parties  looked  into  the 
near  future.  This  feeling  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  the 
peculiarities  of  the  man  on  whom  fortune  now  bestowed  the 
doubtful  favor  of  unexpected  preferment. 

The  masses  might,  in  great  part,  as  Kennedy  claims,  have 
found  a  satisfactory  proof  that  Tyler  was  a  genuine  whig  in 
the  fact  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  Ilarrisburg  conven- 
tion, and  was  nominated  by  it.  The  politicians  were  better 
informed.  AVlien  they  afterwards  acted  as  if  they  consid- 
ered it  self-evident  that  Tyler  v/ould  zealously  cooperate  in 

'  Sargent,  the  rigid  whig,  and  a  fellow-actor,  as  a  dreaded  publicist, 
under  the  pseudonym  of  OUver  Oldschool,  writes:  "  General  Harrison  was 
but  the  figure-head.  .  .  .  Few  had  ever  heard  of  him.  ...  As 
to  liis  fitness  for  the  presidency,  the  people  knew  nothing  and  cared 
nothing.  A  change  in  the  government  was  what  they  desired  and  were 
determined  to  have."    Sargent,  1.  c,  II,  p.  110. 

*Mem.  of  J,  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  457j  Kennedy,  Defence  of  the  Whigs; 
Statesm.'s  Man.,  11,  p.  1522;  the  "Richmond  Whig,"  NUes,  LXI,  p.  232; 
B  W.  Leigh,  ibid.,  p.  233,  etc 


ttleb's  politics.  413 

carrying  out  the  strict  whig  programme,  they  boldly  de- 
ceived the  masses,  who  did  not  know  what  was  done  before 
the  convention  or  during  it,  behind  the  scenes.  There  is  no 
lack  of  documentary  evidence  to  prove  how  perfectly  well 
the  initiated  knew  that,  with  Tyler,  the  executive  power  had 
.  come  into  the  possession  of  the  minority  of  the  whig- 
tinctured  democratic  opposition,  whose  alliance  was  paid  for 
with  the  honorable  but  not  very  important  position  of  the 
vice-presidency.  From  the  very  first,  they  anxiously  asked 
themselves  how  far  he  was  now  ready  to  act  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  majority  of  the  coalition. 

Adams,  who,  in  all  great  economic  controversies,  was  a 
decided  whig,  expressed  his  conviction,  in  his  diary,  on  the 
very  day  of  Harrison's  death,  that  no  promotion  of  the  in- 
terests of  the  country  was  to  be  expected  from  Tyler.^  Gush- 
ing, who  was  soon  one  of  the  most  prominent  members  of 
Tyler's  "  corporal's  guard,"  was  very  reserved,  the  folloAving 
day,  on  the  probable  policy  of  the  new  administration.'^  Dick- 
inson, one  of  the  most  influential  New  Tork  politicians, 
came  to  Washington  and  endeavored  to  ascertain  what  was 

'  "Tyler  is  a  political  sectarian,  of  the  slave-driving,  Virginian,  Jeffer- 
sonian  school,  principled  against  all  improvement,  with  aU  the  interests 
and  passions  and  vices  of  slavery  rooted  in  his  moral  and  political  consti- 
tution; with  talents  not  above  medioanty,  and  a  spirit  incapable  of  expan- 
sion to  the  dimensions  of  the  station  upon  which  he  has  been  cast  by  the 
hand  of  Providence,  unseen  through  the  apparent  agency  of  chance." 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  April  4,  1841,  X,  p.  467.  On  the  Gth  of  April,  he 
adds:  "Slavery,  temperance,  land-jobbing,  bankruptcy,  and  sundry  con- 
troversies with  Great  Britain,  constitute  the  material  for  the  history  of 
John  Tyler's  administration.  But  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of 
man  will  form  no  part  of  his  policy,  and  the  improvement  of  his  coimtry 
will  be  an  object  of  his  most  inveterate  and  inflexible  opposition."  Ibid., 
p.  459. 

' "  Conversing  with  him  [Gushing]  on  various  political  topics,  I  found 
him  doubting  what  will  now  be  the  principles  of  the  administration  sub- 
stituted for  that  of  General  Harrison,  and  very  reserved  in  the  expression 
of  his  own  opinions."    Ibid.,  p.  458. 


414:  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

to  be  expected  in  relation  to  the  economic  questions,  from 
the  president.^  Claj  wrote  to  his  friend  Brooke  that  he 
started  for  Washington  with  great  hopes,  but  that  doubts 
concerning  the  attitude  of  the  executive  did  not  allow  him 
to  be  free  from  fear.' 

Tyler  had  as  yet  said  nothing  piiblicly  or  officially  from 
which  any  conclusion  as  to  his  intentions  could  be  drawn 
with  certainty.  What  he  had  said  was  so  studiedly  vague 
that  it  could  only  be  assumed,  either  that  he  desired  to  keep 
the  people  in  the  dark  concerning  his  plans,  or  that  he  had 
not  yet  come  to  any  decision  as  to  what  his  programme 
should  be.  In  my  opinion,  both  assumptions  were  true,  but 
the  fact  that  he  had  not  decided  on  his  programme  was,  at 
first,  the  preponderating  cause. 

From  the  very  first  sentences  of  the  address  which  Tyler 
issued  to  the  people,  on  the  9th  of  April,  it  was  plain  enough 
that  he,  no  less  than  the  whigs,  contemplated  from  the  be- 
ginning the  probability  of  a  conflict.'    But  at  what  definite 

'  "  .  .  .He  [Dickinsonl  manifested  great  anxiety  to  know  what  were 
ihe  intentions  and  the  expectations  of  the  administration  with  regard  to  a 
national  bank,  a  tariff,  and  the  distribution  among  the  states  of  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  public  lands.  I  told  him  I  knew  nothing  more  upon  these  sub- 
jects.than  was  to  be  gathered  from  the  newspapers."  April  13,  ibid.,  p.  461 . 

*  "  I  repair  to  my  post  in  the  senate  with  strong  hopes,  not,  however, 
unmixed  with  fears.  If  the  executive  will  cordially  cooperate  in  carrying 
out  the  whig  measures,  all  will  be  well.  Otherwise,  everything  is  at  haz- 
ard." May  14,  1841.  Clay,  Priv.  C!orresp.,  p.  454.  Hence,  what  Clay 
said  in  his  speech  on  the  first  bank- veto  was  simply  not  true:  "It  [the 
address  of  the  9th  of  April]  was  emphatically  a  whig  address,  from  be- 
ginning to  end;  every  inch  of  it  was  whig,  and  was  patriotic.  .  .  . 
Entertaining  this  opinion  of  the  address,  I  came  to  Washington,  at 
tlie  commencement  of  the  session,  with  the  most  confident  and  buoyant 
hopes  that  the  whigs  would  be  able  to  carry  all  their  prominent  measures, 
and  especially  a  bank  of  the  United  States,  by  far  that  one  of  the  greatest 
immediate  importance.  I  anticipated  nothing  but  cordial  cooperation  be- 
tween the  two  departments  of  government."    Sp.,  II,  pp.  493,  494. 

*  "  The  spirit  of  faction  which  is  directly  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  a  lofty 


TTLEB   AlfD  THE   DBM0CEAT8.  415 

point  he  expected  the  conflict  to  break  out  was  not  apparent 
from  the  smooth  generalities  of  the  address.  It  is,  indeed, 
true  that  the  eyes  of  both  parties  remained  invohmtarily 
fastened  on  the  passage  which  treated  of  "  the  restoration  of 
a  sound  circulating  medium." '  But  both  parties  found  in 
their  comprehension  of  it,  suiScient  support  for  the  inter- 
pretation which  suited  them  best.  That  there  were  demo- 
crats afterwards  who,  in  hearty  agreement  with  the  whigs, 
claimed  that  it  was  understood  as  an  unconditional  engage- 
ment to  follow  a  purely  whig  policy,  and  that  it  could  not 
have  been  understood  in  any  other  way,'  was  a  subsequent 
distortion  of   the  facts,  with  a  purpose.      The  democrats 

patriotism,  may  find  in  this  [that  he  was  the  first  vice-president  who  had 
attained  to  the  presidency]  occasion  for  assaults  upon  my  administration. 
And  in  succeeding,  under  circumstances  so  sudden  and  unexpected,  and  to 
responsibilities  so  greatly  augmented,  to  the  administration  of  public 
affairs,  I  shall  place  in  the  intelligence  and  patriotism  of  the  people  my 
only  sure  reliance."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  IT,  p.  1337. 

'  "  I  shall  promptly  give  my  sanction  to  any  constitutional  measure 
which,  originating  in  congress,  shall  have  for  its  object  the  restoration  of  a 
sound  circulating  medium.  ...  In  deciding  upon  the  adaptation  of 
any  such  measure  to  the  end  proposed,  as  well  as  its  conformity  to  the  con- 
stitution, I  shall  resort  to  the  fathers  of  the  great  republican  school  for 
advice  and  instruction,  to  be  drawn  from  their  sage  views  of  our  system  of 
government,  and  the  light  of  their  ever  glorious  example."  Statesm.'s 
Man.,  II,  p.  1339. 

•  "The  concluding  part  of  this  paragraph,  in  which  the  new  president 
declares  that,  in  looking  to  the  constitutionality  and  expediency  of  a  na- 
tional bank,  he  should  look  for  advice  and  instruction  to  the  example  of  « 
the  fathers  of  the  republic,  he  was  understood  as  declaring  that  he  would 
not  be  governed  by  his  own  former  opinions  against  a  national  bank,  but 
by  the  example  of  Washington,  a  signer  of  the  constitution  (who  signed 
the  charter  of  the  first  national  bank);  and  by  the  example  of  Mr.  Madi- 
son, another  signer  of  the  constitution,  who,  yielding  to  precedent  and  the 
authority  of  judicial  decisions,  had  fdgned  the  charter  for  the  second  bank, 
notwiflistanding  his  early  constitutional  objections  to  it."  Benton,  Thirty 
Yeai-s'  View,  II,  p.  213.  It  will  not  escape  the  reader  that  Benton  puta 
Tyli.>r's  declarations  in  an  entirely  different  light  by  substituting  "the 
fathen<  of  the  republic"  for  "the  fathers  of  the  great  republican  schooL" 


416  Jackson's  ADiriNisTRATioN' — annexation  of  texas. 

rejoiced  over  the  services  which  Tyler  had  done  them ;  but 
when  they  were  called  upon  to  give  proofs  of  their  grati- 
tude for  the  same,  there  were  many  of  them  who  did  not 
at  all  care  to  purge  him  from  the  reproach  of  being  a 
traitor.^ 

On  the  31st  of  May,  the  extraordinary  session  of  congress 
called  by  Harrison  convened.  Tlie  message  of  the  president 
went  one  step  fartl>er  than  the  address,  but  it,  too,  was  very 
far  from  clearly  stating  his  position.  The  hopes  of  the  dem- 
ocrats were  raised  by  the  formal  declaration  that  Jackson's 
and  Yan  Buren's  bank  policy,  so  far  as  it  was  a  negative  one, 
had  undoubtedly  been  approved  by  the  people.  But,  spite 
of  this  admission,  it  was  possible  to  put  any  meaning  one 
wished  on  tbe  message.  An  equal  number  of  ayes  and  nays 
were  placed  in  the  box,  thoroughly  mingled  and  thrown  on 
the  table  in  a  motley  pile,  to  be  freely  chosen  from.     Every 

'Adams  says:  "  The  feud  between  the  president  and  the  two  houses  of 
congress,  festering  ever  since  a  special  providence  placed  John  Tj-ler  in  the 
presidential  chair."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  531.  Botts,  of  Virginia,  in- 
deed, relates  all  kinds  of  things  concerning  very  definite  promises  of  Tyler  in 
regard  to  the  bank  question.  He  tells  how,  on  the  night  of  the  2d  of  March, 
they  had,  as  bed- fellows,  a  long  conversation  on  poHtical  subjects,  in  which 
Tyler  declared  that  if  the  passage  of  a  bank  bUl  should  depend  on  his  vote,  ho 
would  be  found  at  the  height  of  a  representative  of  the  nation  and  sacrifice 
the  views  he  had  fought  for  as  the  representative  of  Virginia.  The  vice- 
president,  he  said,  had  repeated  this  declaration  the  following  day  in  pres- 
ence of  several  gentlemen.  But  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  Botts  was 
not  only  one  of  the  most  enraged  whigs,  but  that  when  he  made  these 
revelations  he  was-a  bitter  personal  enemy  of  Tyler,  and  that  he  could  not 
name  any  of  these  several  gentlemen.  Besides,  Botts  himself  said  that 
Tyler  had  expressed  the  hope  that  he  would  not  be  placed  in  such  a  situa- 
tion as  to  have  to  cast  his  vote  on  a  bank  bill,  and  that  he  had  further  said 
to  him,  before  these  gentlemen:  "  Don't  jou  commit  me  too  far  on  that 
subject."  It  appears  from  this  statement  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  whigs 
felt  by  no  means  sure  of  Tyler,  and,  on  the  other,  that  Tyler  had  not  yet 
formed  any  firm  resolution  as  to  what  he  would  do,  if  circumstances  com- 
pelled him  to  couje  to  a  decision.  Jno.  M.  Botts,  to  the  Editors  of  the 
•'  Whig,"  May  8,  1843.     Niles,  LXIV,  p.  216. 


THE  INDEPENDENT  TKEA8UEY.  417 

experiment  hitherto  made,  said  the  president,  had  been  passed 
on,  one  after  the  other,  by  the  people,  and  the  last  election 
gave  no  clue  to  what  the  people  now  desired.  He  would 
leave  the  entire  matter  to  congress,  and  reserve  to  himself 
only  the  privilege  of  rejecting  the  decisions  of  congress  on 
constitutional  grounds,  or  grounds  of  expediency.' 

Only  this  much  could  be  said  with  certainty,  that  the  pres- 
ident, like  the  whigs,  wished  the  repeal  of  the  law  relating 
to  the  independent  treasury,  and  that  he  considered  the 
creation  of  an  institution  on  which  should  be  devolved  cer- 
tain functions  which  had  belonged  to  the  duties  of  the  former 
national  bank  necessary.  The  whigs,  however,  were  enti- 
tled to  assume  that  Tyler  was  prepared  to  leave  the  character 
of  this  latter  institution  pretty  nearly  like  that  of  a  national 
bank.  One  could  not  but  suppose  that  the  president  and 
secretary  of  the  treasury  would  act  in  unison  on  this  im- 
portant question,  and  Ewing's  report  of  the  second  of  June, 
1841,  expressly  advocated  a  bank*    At  the  close,  Ewing, 

'  "  Thus,  in  the  short  period  of  eight  years,  the  popular  voice  may  be 
regarded  as  having  successively  condemned  each  of  the  three  schemes  (rf 
finance  to  which  I  have  adverted.  .  .  .  What  is  now  to  be  regarded  as  the 
judgment  of  the  American  people  on  this  whole  subject,  I  have  no  accurate 
means  of  determining  but  by  appealing  to  their  more  immediate  represent- 
atives. The  late  contest,  which  terminated  in  the  election  of  General  Bku> 
rison  to  the  presidency,  was  decided  on  principles  well  known  and  openly 
declared;  and  while  the  sub-treasury  received  in  the  result  the  most  decided 
condemnation,  yet  no  other  scheme  of  finance  seemed  to  have  been  con- 
curred in.  To  you,  then,  who  have  come  more  directly  from  the  body  of 
our  common  constituents,  I  submit  the  entire  question,  as  best  qualified  to 
give  a  full  exposition  of  their  wishes  and  opinions.  I  shall  be  ready  to  con- 
cur with  you  in  the  adoption  of  such  a  system  as  you  may  propose,  reserv- 
mg  to  myself  the  ultimate  power  of  rejecting  any  measure  which  may,  in 
my  view  of  it,  conflict  with  the  constitution,  or  otherwise  jeopard  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  — a  power  which  I  could  not  part  with  even  if  I  would, 
but  which  I  will  not  believe  any  act  of  yours  will  call  into  requisition." 
Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1345,  1346. 

" ".  .  .  experience  has  demonstrated  the  superior  utility  of  a  bank 
27 


418  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

however,  suggested  that  it  was  necessary  to  take  the  old 
constitutional  misgivings,  and  the  question  of  the  expe- 
diency of  the  institution,  into  consideration,  if  the  end  was 
to  be  attained.^ 

Had  the  whigs  only  the  material  interests  of  the  country  in 
view,  and  had  they  been  capable  of  sober  deliberation,  they 
could  not  but  have  taken  this  warning  intimation  to  heart. 
Even  if  the  president  were  morally  bound  to  snpport  their 
poh'cy  to  the  extent  which  they  claimed,  it  would  have  been 
to  their  best  interest  to  have  made  it  as  easy  for  him  as  pos- 
sible to  do  so.  Even  if  Tyler  had  been  a  second  "Washing- 
ton, it  would  have  cost  him  a  hard  struggle  to  act,  as  presi- 
dent, directly  in  opposition  to  the  views  which  he  had  bat- 
tled for,  for  years,  in  congress.  But  the  demeanor  of  the 
leading  whigs  by  no  means  evinced  any  anxious  desire  to 
meet  him  half  way, and  to  facilitate  the  further  development 
of  his  metamorphosis  out  of  a  radical  democrat  into  a  pre- 
sentable whig.  Even  the  unusual  manner  in  which  Clay 
announced  to  congress  what  his  task  for  the  session  was, 
awakened  the  suspicion  that  he  considered  himself  the  right- 
ful possessor  of  the  supreme  command.^  This  suspicion  was 
not  weakened  by  the  report  which  he  now  made  as  chairman 

constituted  and  adopted  by  congress  as  a  fiscal  agent.  ...  In  whatever 
point  of  light  the  undersigned  is  able  to  view  this  subject,  he  is  irresistibly 
led  to  the  conclusion  that  such  fiscal  agent,  so  framed  as  to  possess  those 
important  functions,  is  alike  essential  to  the  wants  of  the  treasuiy  and  of 
the  community.  .  .  .  The  undersigned  has  no  doubt  of  the  power  of 
congress  to  create  such  an  institution."  NUes,  LX,  p.  234,  Ewing'sbank 
plan  is  printed  in  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  pp,  296,  297. 

'  "  If  such  an  institution  can  be  so  conceived  in  principle  and  guarded  in 
its  details  as  to  remove  all  scruples  touching  the  question  of  constitutional 
power,  and  thus  avoid  the  objections  whieh  have  been  urged  against  those 
heretofore  created  by  congress,  it  will,  in  the  opinion  of  the  undersigned, 
produce  the  happiest  results."    Niles,  1.  c. 

*  See  his  "  programme  resolutions  "  of  Jime  7.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV, 
pp.  291,  292. 


THE   BANK    CONTEOVEEST.  419 

of  the  senate  committee  on  the  bank  question.  The  com- 
mittee declared  all  further  discussion  on  the  constitutionality 
or  expediency  of  a  bank  to  be  superfluous,  and  this  not  only 
because  all  that  could  be  said  on  the  subject  had  been  said 
already,  many  a  time,  but  also  because  it  was  unquestiona- 
ble that  a  great  majority  of  the  people  answered  both  ques- 
tions in  the  affirmative.^  In  accordance  with  the  known 
wishes  of  the  president,  he  chose  Washington  as  the  seat  of 
the  bank.  On  the  much  more  important  question  of  the  right 
of  the  bank  to  establish  branch  banks,  the  committee,  on  the 
other  hand,  declared  it  to  be  irreconcilable  with  its  duty  to 
make  the  establishment  of  such  banks,  according  to  the  prop- 
osition of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  dependent  on  the 
consent  of  the  several  states. 

The  president  and  the  committee  of  the  senate,  therefore, 
had  very  different  views  as  to  what  might  be  inferred  from 
the  presidential  election  of  the  previous  year,  concerning  the 
attitude  of  the  people  towards  the  bank  question.  We  have 
already  seen,  from  the  history  of  the  electoral  campaign,  that 
Tyler's  view  was  unquestionably  the  correct  one.  It  suffices, 
therefore,  to  bring  forward  only  two  other  direct  witnesses 
in  proof  of  this,  who  are  of  importance  for  the  proper  un- 
derstanding of  the  following  events.  Ewing  had,  in  July, 
1840,  declared  it  to  be  a  shameless  and  absurd  piece  of  dem- 
ocratic trickery,  to  make  the  people  believe  that  there  was 
question  of   the  bank  controversy  in  the  election.'     And 

*  "  On  botb,  it  is  the  deliberate  conviction  of  the  committee  that  a  vast 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  concur;  and  that  they  are  now 
looking,  with  anxious  solicitude,  to  the  deliberations  of  congress,  under 
the  confident  hope  that  a  bank  of  the  United  States  will  be  established  at 
the  present  extraorclmary  session  of  congress."    Niles,  LX,  p.  258. 

*  T.  Ewing  to  L.  D.  Barker,  Lancaster,  July  18,  1840:  "  My  Dear  Sir: 
On  my  return  from  Columbus  this  evening,  I  received  your  letter  inform- 
ing me  that  it  was  asserted  at  a  public  meeting  in  Washington  county, 
that,  in  a  speech  at  Philadelphia,  I  had  said  the  true  question  beiween  the 


420  Jackson's  administkation — annexation  of  tbxas. 

"Wise  —  like  Tyler,  a  political  hybrid,  but  preponderantly 
whig — had,  in  January,  1841,  strongly  inveighed  against  the 
calling  of  congress,  in  extraordinary  session,  and  the  forcing  of 
the  bank  question  prematurely,  that  is,  before  the  people  had 
taken  any  decided  position  in  regard  to  it,  to  a  decision.^ 

The  success  attending  the  bill  of  the  committee  in  the  sen- 
ate afforded  no  proof  of  the  "  immense  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple" who,  it  was  alleged,  were  waiting  with  anxious  impa- 
tience for  the  establishment  of  a  bank.  The  bill  was  passed 
by  a  vote  of  only  twenty-six  against  twenty- three,'^  and  two 
senators  abstained  from  voting,  because,  although,  speaking 
generally,  they  wanted  a  bank,  they  considered  the  consent 
of  the  states  necessary  to  the  establishment  of  branch  banks, 
while  two  other  senators  would  vote  for  the  bill  only  on  con- 
dition that  this  power  was  granted  to  the  bank  absolutely.' 
In  the  house  several  wliigs  voted  against  the  bill,  and  ProfRt, 
of  Indiana,  assures  us  that  no  one  was  satisfied  with  it.* 

partiea  was  a  bank  of  the  United  States,  and  that  you,  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  real  question  and  of  me,  had  contradicted  the  assertion.  In  this, 
of  coiuse,  you  were  perfectly  safe.  I  made  no  such  statement,  but  the 
very  contrary.  I  avowed  that  the  true  question  was  and  is  the  restriction 
or  extension  of  the  executive  power.  ...  I  said  that  our  opponents 
were  attempting  to  make  the  question  of  a  bank  the  issue  between  the 
two  parties.  I  spoke  of  the  impudence  and  absurdity  of  the  attempt.  That 
a  bank  was  not,  and  never  had  been,  considered  by  us  anything  more  than 
a  mere  matter  of  convenience  —  a  useful  article  of  furniture  in  our  noble 
edifice."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  95. 

*  "  Sir,  I  yield  to  no  man  in  friendship  to  a  properly  organized,  properly 
located,  and  well  managed  national  bank.  And,  as  a  friend  to  that  meas- 
ure, I  inveigh  especially  against  urging  it  prematurely,  and  in  the  midst 
of  pressure.  If  you  press  it  too  eagerly,  too  hastily,  at  the  wrong  time, 
you  will  lose  the  question  for  twenty  years  to  come."   Niles,  LX,  p.  407. 

»Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  324. 

'Wise's  speech  of  the  6th  of  August,  1841,  in  the  house  of  representa- 
tives. Niles,  LX,  p.  407.  On  reconsideration,  the  biU  received  only  twenty- 
five  against  twenty-four  votes.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  359. 

*  "  The  first  bill  that  passed  all  acknowledged  to  be  a  most  contemptible 
•fl&ur.    I  voted  for  it  reluctantly.    Several  of  the  most  prominent  whiga 


tylee's  policy.  421 

It  was  tacitly  admitted  that  the  bill  had,  in  fact,  met  the 
wishes  of  no  portion  of  any  party.  Tlie  principal  cause  of 
tliis  was,  obviously^  the  contested  fact,  tliat  the  wishes  and 
views  of  the  people,  in  relation  to  this  whole  question,  were 
in  a  state  of  dissolution,  and  that,  therefore,  there  was  noth- 
ing to  be  said  of  definitely  ascertaining  what  the  popular 
will  demanded.  But  this  alone  was  not  a  sufficient  explana- 
tion, since  Clay,  at  first,  manifested  so  little  zeal  to  seek 
a  mediating  understanding  from  the  side  which  came  most 
into  consideration.  It  may  be  that  the  essential  difficulties 
would  have  proved  too  great  in  any  case;  but  no  attempt 
had  been  made,  with  the  proper  earnestness  and  in  the  proper 
spirit,  to  overcome  them.  Under  the  pressure  of  entirely 
personal  motives,  people,  on  both  sides,  had  fallen  into  the 
malignant  currents  of  the  politics  of  moods.  The  controlr 
ling  whigs  were  now  concerned,  above  all  things,  with  push- 
ing a  bank  law  through:  its  provisions  were  a  matter  of 
secondary  consideration. 

Proffit  made  the  charge  that  all  the  work  of  the  session 
tended,  in  the  first  place,  towards  "  president-making."  As  he 
belonged  to  the  president's  political  body-guard,  the  charge 
sh'juld  have  been  directed  only  against  the  president's  op- 
ponents. But  the  arrow  rebounded  against  the  archer. 
Adams,  with  almost  exaggerated  care,  kept  his  hands  clean 
of  all  president-making,  and  yet,  long  before  the  meeting  of 
congress,  he  had  come  to  the  conviction  that  the  great  aim 
of  all  Tyler's  policy  would  be  to  effect  his  reelection.*   Others 

in  this  house  voted  against  it.  Not  a  single  one  approved  of  the  bill.  I 
can  well  anderstand,  sir,  how  unwilling  its  framers  were  to  make  an  issue 
on  the  fate  of  that  bill."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  93. 

'  He  writes  on  the  20th  of  April:  **  In  my  conversation  with  Mr.  Bell 
last  evening,  I  had  reason  to  conclude  that  the  poUcy  of  Mr.  Tyler  will 
look  exclusively  to  his  own  election  for  the  next  four  years'  term  as  presi- 
dent, and  that  of  Webster  will  be  to  secure  it  for  him;  that  Mr.  Clay  will 
be  left  to  fight  his  own  battles  with  the  land  bill,  without  aid  or  aupport 


422    Jackson's  administeation  — annexation  of  texas. 

shared  this  opinion,  and  immediately  endeavored  to  nse  the 
peculiar  position  of  the  president  between  the  parties,  to 
build  up  a  third  party,  in  which  they  might  play  the  prin- 
cipal part.  Benton  relates  that  Gilmer,  of  Virginia,  made 
overtures  tending  in  this  direction  to  one  of  the  whigs  in  the 
house  of  representatives,  as  early  as  in  the  first  week  of  the 
session.^  The  history  of  Tyler's  administration  and  the  part 
played  in  it  by  Gilmer  make  the  correctness  of  the  allega- 
tion seem  entirely  probable.  That  the  hot-headed  ex-gov- 
ernor of  Yirginia  should  have  been  so  incautious  in  his  zeal 
as  to  apply  to  the  wrong  man  gives  no  ground  for  doubt. 
Tyler  himself  was  so  preoccupied  with  his  ambitious  plans, 
that  he  was  not  able  to  bridle  his  tongue,  and  he,  also,  im- 
mediately opened  his  heart  to  the  wrong  man.  The  account 
given  by  Botts^  of  his  conversation  with  the  president,  on  the 
third  day  of  the  session,  enters  into  details  to  such  an  extent, 
and  bears  so  much  the  impress  of  the  complete  honesty  of 
the  teller,  that  one  cannot  help  considering  it  essentially 
faithful  to  the  truth,  although  the  coloring  is  presumably 
too  strong,  and,  of  course,  to  Tyler's  disadvantage.  In  this 
conversation,  it  was  said,  Tyler  raised  the  question,  why  he 
should  confine  himself  to  a  four  years' presidency,  and  not 
contemplate  one  of  twelve.  The  first  four  years  were  only 
Harrison's  term  of  office,  and  might  very  well  be  followed 
by  two  other  terms  of  office  in  his  own  right,  so  to  speak. 
Into  the  discussion  of  this  question,  it  was  said,  the  president 

from  the  admininistration;  and  that  between  Tyler  and  Webster  there 
will  be  a  concert  of  mutual  concession  between  the  north  and  the  south. 
Clay  will  soon  be  in  unequivocal  opposition,  and  the  administration  will 
waddle  along,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  for  as  to  any  great,  command- 
ing and  compact  system,  Webster  is  '  a  great  baby,'  and  Ewing  is  another. 
Of  course,  this  administration  will  be  a  failure,  and  a  general  bankruptcj 
IB  impending."     Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  ^65. 

'Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  342. 

•Niles,  LXIV,  pp.  214,  215. 


olay'b  position.  423 

had  caused  to  creep  the  further  suggestion,  that  Botts  might 
cooperate  to  make  Webster  the  "  strong  man  "  in  the  south, 
and  thus  pave  the  way  for  him  to  the  White  House. 

Whatever  truth  this  compromising  testimony  may  have 
contained,  the  accusation  was  universally  looked  upon  as  en- 
tirely well  founded.  But  Clay  was  firmly  resolved  not  to 
allow  himself  to  be  forced  out  of  the  whig  candidacy,  in 
1844,  by  any  one,  and  least  of  all,  by  the  accidental  presi- 
dent. His  partisans  stood  by  him  firmly.  Their  acrimony 
over  the  defeat  at  Harrisburg,  which  seemed  cured  by  the 
brilliant  electoral  victory,  was  awakened  anew  by  Harrison's 
death.  The  first  faint  signs,  therefore,  that  Tyler  enter- 
tained the  thought  of  employing  the  power  accidentally  ob- 
tained in  order  to  maintain  himself  in  it,  produced  among 
Clay's  partisans  a  feeling  of  irritation  which  promised  noth- 
ing good.  And,  added  to  this,  was  the  well  founded  fear 
that  the  party  would  see  after  so  long  a  struggle,  the  fruits 
of  the  victory  finally  obtained  spoiled.  Before  the  work  ol 
legislation  was  taken  up,  men  on  both  sides  had  gotten  into 
such  a  state  of  mind  as  made  dispassionate  consideration  im- 
possible. There  was  an  uninterrupted  grumbling  and  vexa- 
tion, not  on  both  sides  only,  but  on  all  three  sides.  Tyler 
had  as  yet  done  no  official  act  to  bring  himself  in  open  con- 
flict with  the  whigs,  and  yet  there  was  already  a  broad  gap 
between  them,  scarcely  bridged  over  by  a  few  unsafe  planks. 
As  early  as  the  2d  of  June.  Botts  reproached  Tyler  because 
he  had  surrendered  himself  to  a  "  back-stairs  influence."  ^  On 
the  4th  of  July,  Clay  expressed  a  fear  that  Tyler's^  heresies 
would  endanger  the  existence  of  the  whig  party.'   The  Hich' 

•Niles,  LXIV,  p.215. 

'  "  Mr.  Tyler's  opinions  about  a  bank  are  giving  us  great  trouble.  In- 
deed, they  not  only  threaten  a  defeat  on  that  measure,  but  endanger  the 
permanency  and  the  ascendency  of  the  whig  cause."  Priv.  Corresp.,  p. 
454. 


424  Jackson's  administeation  —  aitoexation  of  texas. 

mond  Enquirer^  on  the  other  hand,  endeavored  to  prove  to 
Tyler  that  every  imaginable  consideration  should  determine 
him  to  go  with  the  democrats,^  and  on  the  27th  of  July, 
Gilmer  complained,  in  the  house  of  representatives,  that 
both  Tyler  and  himself  had  been  proscribed  by  the  whigs.' 

It  was  considered  almost  a  foregone  conclusion  that  the 
bank  bill  would  be  sent  back  with  the  president's  veto. 
Ewing  admitted  that  he  had  not,  from  the  first,  expected  its 
approval.^  Yet  the  charge  that  Clay's  party  sought  a  con- 
troversy with  Tyler  is  probably  exaggerated.*  But  they  cer- 
tainly did  not  get  out  of  his  way,  for  they  must  have  been 
informed  how  the  attitude  of  the  president  was  judged  by 
the  members  of  the  cabinet.  At  the  risk  of  a  complete  rup- 
ture, they  ventured  to  put  him  to  a  test  which,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury,  would  be  found  too 
severe.  Tliey  did,  however,  believe  in  the  possibility  of  suc- 
cess. But  if  there  were  really  such  a  possibility,  one  of  their 
own  leaders  was  responsible  for  its  destruction. 

In  a  letter  of  the  10th  of  August,  Botts  implored  the  pres- 
ident to  reconsider  his  supposed  resolve,  and  to  sign  the 

• "  Mr.  Tyler's  principles,  duties,  policy,  interests,  axe  all  with  us,  if  he 
can  only  see  them.  But  will  he  see  them?  We  hope  and  trust  he  will 
not  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the  federal  whigs."  Statesm.'s  Man., 
II,  p.  1522. 

* "  Then  came  Gilmer,  of  Virginia,  with  what  was  called  his  valedictory 
to  the  whig  party.  He  did  not  know  what  the  whig  party  was,  and  com- 
plained of  being  proscribed  himseK,  and  of  the  president's  being  proscribed, 
by  the  whigs."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  515. 

•"I  .  .  .  rather  hoped  than  expected  your  approval.  I  knew  the 
extent  to  which  you  were  committed  on  the  question.  I  knew  the  perti- 
nacity with  which  you  adhered  to  your  expressed  opinions,  and  I  dreaded 
from  the  first  the  most  disastrous  consequences,  when  the  project  of  com- 
promise which  I  presented  at  an  early  day  was  rejected."  Ewing's  letter 
of  resignation  of  the  Uth  of  September,  1841.    Niles,  LXI,  p.  33. 

*Proflat  says:  "  And  I  repeat  that,  fi'om  the  first  meeting  of  congress  up 
to  this  hour,  there  has  been  a  determination  on  the  part  of  some  gentlemen 
to  create  an  issue  with  the  president,"    Ibid.,  p.  93. 


TYLEB's   TE0UBLE8.  425 

bill.  He  based  his  petition  on  the  claim  that  a  veto  would 
be  followed  by  the  resignation  of  the  present  cabinet,  and 
that  the  formation  of  a  new  whig  cabinet  or  of  a  democratic 
cabinet  would  be  impossible;  that  Tyler  would  have  to  fall 
back  npon  "  the  fragment  of  seceders,"  and,  as  these  conld 
never  win  the  confidence  of  the  country,  be  finally  com- 
pelled to  resign  himself.* 

Tyler  had  too  little  firmness  of  character  and  too  much 
vanity  to  be  able  to  face  the  reproach,  that  he  had  become 
unfaithful  to  his  earlier  convictions,  because  he  did  not  dare 
to  defy  the  whigs.  But  it  was  with  him  as  with  a  great 
many  others:  he  admired  himself  most  for  those  qualities 
in  which  he  was  lacking  —  strength  of  character  and  unsel- 
fish devotion  to  the  cause.  The  fact  that  the  knife  was 
now  aimed  so  directly  at  his  breast  made  him  obstinate.  It 
not  unfrequently  happens  that  vanity  rushes  with  impatient 
zeal  into  resolves  before  which  the  lack  of  moral  courage 
had  long  hesitated.  The  thought  of  looking  at  himself  as 
the  unflinching  martyr  to  firmness  of  conviction  and  fidel- 
ity to  duty  was,  to  a  great  extent,  compensation  for  the  un- 
pleasantness and  dangers  of  the  coming  storm. 

On  the  16th  of  August,  the  senate  received  the  returned 
bill  with  the  veto  assigning  the  reasons  for  its  return.*    The 

•  "  You  woulJ  be  thrown  back  then  on  the  fragment  of  seceders,  '  the 
republican  portion  of  the  whig  party,'  as  they  style  themselves.  Now,  let 
me  ask  you,  could  you  rally  around  you  a  cabinet  of  such  men  from  that 
party,  so  distributed  through  or  selected  from  the  different  sections  of  the 
country,  as  would  command  the  confidence  or  respect  of  the  country?  If 
not,  in  v;hat  condition  would  you  be  placed?  But,  if  you  could,  what 
mea  jure  could  be  adopted  for  carrying  on  the  financial  operations  of  the 
government?  The  sub-treasury  is  repealed;  and  the  deposit  system  of 
1S36  is  also  repealed  in  one  house,  and  wiU  pass  the  other;  congress  will 
not  consent  to  take  the  plan  suggested  by  the  secretary  of  the  treasury. 
Will  you  not  find  it  impossible  to  carry  on  the  government,  and  will  not  a 
resignation  be  forced  upon  you?  "  Ibid.,  p.  79. 

*  Statesm.'a  Man.,  II,  pp.  1352-1656. 


426  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

president  compressed  his  constitutioaal  objections  to  it, 
into  the  one  sentence,  that,  according  to  the  bill,  the  bank 
should  operate,  in  a  direct  manner,  over  the  whole  Union.* 
What  he  meant  by  this  not  very  clear  criticism  may  be  in- 
ferred with  considerable  definitiveness  from  the  commen- 
tary on  the  sixteenth  section,  in  which  the  opposing  views 
on  the  right  to  establish  branch  banks  were,  in  a  very 
strange  manner,  tangled  together.  Ewing,  indeed,  asserted 
later,  that  Tyler,  in  his  conversations  with  him,  had  entirely 
approved  this  very  section.^  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  reason- 
ing of  the  veto  message  against  it  was  irrefutable,  and  Tyler's 
chief  alarm  was  evidently  that,  in  regard  to  this  question 
of  the  branch  banks,  the  right  of  the  sovereign  states  seemed 
to  him  to  be  infringed. 

As  the  veto  surprised  no  one,  and  the  negotiations  for  a 
new  bill  were  begun  on  the  same  day,  the  whigs  held  their 
tongues  pretty  severely  in  check.  Clay,  who  had  wanted  to 
speak  on  the  veto,  on  the  18th  of  August,  postponed  his 
speech,  to  the  following  day,  that  he  might  not  exert  a  disturb- 
ing influence  on  the  transactions  carried  on  in  the  cabinet, 
on  a  compromise  between  the  president  and  congress.  He 
did  not,  however,  keep  himself  from  certain  sallies,  which 
must  have  not  only  wounded  Tyler  personally,  but  which 
betrayed  the  fact  that  he  (Clay)  at  bottom  shared  the  opin- 
ions developed  by  Botts  in  his  letter  of  the  10th  of  August. 
According  to  him,  also,  there  was  only  one  possibility  for 
the  president:  submission  to  the  will  of  the  majority  of 
congress.  Tyler,  Clay  said,  might  have  allowed  the  bill  to 
become  a  law  without  his  signature,®  and  he  reminded  hira 
of  the  good  example  he  (Tyler)  had  given  when  he  resigned 
Iiis  seat  in  the  senate  because  he  would  not  obey  the  instruo- 

*  To  operate  per  s«  over  the  Union. 
»Nites,  LXI.  p.  33. 

•  Clay's  Sp.,  II,  p.  500. 


TYLEB  AKD   THE   BANK   BILL.  427 

tions  of  Yirginia  which  were  contrary  to  his  own  convie- 
tions.^ 

But  without  the  consent  of  the  president,  no  bank  could 
be  established.  Unless  the  establishment  of  one  were  re- 
nounced, therefore,  it  was  necessary  to  make  advances  to 
him.  He  seemed  to  desire  to  make  tliis  easy.  Before  he 
had  sent  the  first  veto  to  the  senate,  he  told  the  two  secre- 
taries, Ewing  and  Bell,  that  congress  might,  in  a  short  space 
of  time,  obtain  his  signature  to  a  bank  bill.^  On  the  evening 
of  the  same  day,  he  agreed  with  Alexander  A.  Stuart,  of 
Yirginia,  on  the  essential  conditions  on  which  he  would  ful- 
fill this  promise.^  On  .the  18th  of  August,  and  after  Tyler 
had  had  a  long  consultation  with  Berrien  and  Sergeant  as 
representatives  of  the  whigs  of  both  houses  of  congress,  thei-e 
was  a  cabinet  meeting.  In  the  cabinet,  the  demands  of  the 
president  were  discussed  in  detail,  and  Ewing  and  Webster 
were  commissioned  by  him  to  treat  with  Berrien  and  Ser- 
geant on  the  basis  of  these  demands.  The  whigs  claimed 
that  the  new  bill  had  been  made  by  them  to  conform  entirely 
to  the  wishes  of  the  president,  which  had  been  made  known 
to  them  in  this  way,  and  they  acted,  therefore,  as  if  there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  its  approval. 

The  investigation  of  the  question,  whether  and  to  what 
extent  that  claim  was  justified,  would  require  a  great  deal  of 
space,  and,  considering  the  nature  of  the  testimony  before 
us,  wonld  lead  to  no  certain  result.  From  a  historical  point 
of  view,  however,  it  is  not  of  much  importance,  since  any 
result  could  only  place  the  one  or  the  other  element  which 
might  be  established  without  it,  in  a  stronger  light.  In  my 
opinion,  the  bill  did  not  fully  and  honestly  fulfill  the  condi- 

>  aay's  Sp.,  n.,  p.  503. 

*  See  Ewing's  letter  of  resignation  and  the  "  Statement ''  which  BeU 
added  to  his  letter  to  Gates  and  Seaton.    Niles,  LXI,  pp  33,  53. 
•See  Stuart's  Statement;  Benton, Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  344 


4:28  Jackson's  admlnistbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tions  made  by  Tyler,  but  the  latter  swelled  np  the  differences 
in  an  improper  measure,  because  he  regretted  his  promise. 
But  if  we  would  place  ourselves  entirely  in  the  position  of 
the  one  party  or  the  other  to  this  hotly  contested  controversy, 
we  would  have  to  admit  that  both  parties  were  to  blame  for 
the  failure  of  the  attempt  at  a  compromise,  and  that,  from 
the  first,  the  successful  issue  of  that  attempt  was  improbable 
in  the  highest  degree. 

On  the  very  day  that  the  bill  passed  the  senate,^  Adams 
said  it  was  a  "  certainty  "  that  it  would  be  vetoed  a  second 
time.*  Tliere  were  not  many  able  to  see  so  clearly,  but 
every  member  of  congress  must  have  been  perfectly  well 
informed,  that,  from  the  very  first  moment,  its  approval  was 
exceedingly  doubtful  if  not  improbable.  If  the  whigs  madQ 
a  show  of  the  opposite  conviction,  their  doing  so  was  demon- 
strably a  lying  mask.  On  their  side,  as  well  as  on  Tyler's, 
the  transaction  was  saturated  with  mistrust,  recklessness, 
insincerity,  and  intrigue  which  feared  the  light. 

Every  day  had  bronght  new  evidence  that  Tyler's  resolutions 
were  no  steadier  than  the  direction  of  the  weather-vane.  On 
the  morning  of  the  17th  of  August,  he  had  asked  Bell  for  some 
information  in  relation  to  the  anticipated  advantage  that  the 
bank  contemplated  by  him  would  be  to  the  war  department. 
When  Bell,  that  evening,  handed  him  the  desired  information, 
the  president  gave  him  to  understand  that  he  had  become 
doubtful  whether  he  would  sign  any  bank-bill.'  In  the  cab- 
inet meeting  of  the  18th  of  August,  he  expressed  the  wish 
that  the  whole  matter  might  be  postponed  to  the  next  ses- 
sion of  congress,*  and  then  fixed  the  basis  on  which  "Webster 

'  Sept.  3,  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  367. 

*  "  The  senate  this  day  passed  the  fiscal  coi-poration  bill  —  twenty-seven 
Jo  twenty-two  —  with  a  certainty  that  it  will  be  vetoed  by  President  Tyler. " 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  4. 

•BeU's  Statement,  Niles,  LXI,  p.  54. 

*Ewing'8  Letter,  ibid.,  p.  33. 


THE   KITCnr.N   CABINET.  429 

and  Ewing  were  to  treat  with  Berrien  and  Sergeant.  Wlien 
the  bill  had  passed  the  house,  he  demanded  from  both  secre- 
taries jnst  named  a  written  discussion  of  its  constitutionality. 
Before  he  had  obtained  it,  he  told  certain  members  of  the 
house  that  he  would  rather  cut  off  his  right  hand  than  sign 
the  bill.^  He  urged  the  cabinet  more  strongly  to  effect  the 
postponement  of  the  question,  but  refused  to  bind  himself 
ior  the  future  by  any  promise. 

What  kind  of  an  engine  it  was  that  threw  this  imaginary 
Cato  hither  and  thither  like  a  ball  was  well  enough  known. 
It  was  well  known  how  firmly  the  kitchen  cabinet  had  estab- 
lished itself  in  the  White  House,^  and  how  easy,  to  that 
kitchen  cabinet,  the  reception  which  the  first  veto  message 
had  met  with  from  the  great  crowd  of  the  democrats  had 
made  the  task  of  conjuring  up  before  the  vain  ambition  of 
the  president,  the  most  alluring  pictures.'  And  even  if  the 
^vind  could  be  taken  out  of  the  sails  of  these  tale-bearers,  it 

'  Ewing's  letter,  Niles,  LXI,  p.  34. 

*  "  There  is  a  rumor  abroad  that  a  cabal  exists  —  a  new  sort  of  kitchen 
cabinet,  whose  object  is  the  dissolution  of  the  regular  cabinet  —  the  disso- 
lution of  the  whig  party —  the  dispersion  of  congress,  without  accomplishing 
any  of  the  great  purposes  of  the  extra  session,  and  a  total  change,  in  fact, 
in  the  whole  face  of  our  poUtical  affairs."    Clay's  Sp.,  II,  p.  512. 

*  Even  bsfore  the  first  veto,  a  speaker  in  a  democratic-  mass  meeting  in 
New  York  said:  "  He  hoped  that  John  Tyler  would  listen  to  the  respectful 
remonstrance  of  30,000  of  his  fellow  citizens  in  New  York,  and  veto  the 
bank  bill  if  it  passad  both  houses.  (Uproarious  cheering.)  And,  if  he 
did,  he,  for  one,  whig  though  he  beheved  him  to  be,  would  vote  for  him 
for  the  next  president  of  the  United  States.  (Loud  and  continued  cheer- 
ing.) If  John  Tyler  stood  by  the  people  without  respect  to  party,  the  peo- 
ple would  stand  by  him.  (Cheers  on  cheers,  and  some  dissenting.)  And 
lie  would  be  elected  president  by  the  most  tremendous  majority  ever  given 
in  this  country.  (Loud  cheering.)  "  And  another  speaker  exclaimed:  "I 
have  always  been  a  democrat  —  always  voted  with  my  party  —  but  if  John 
Tyler  stands  by  the  people  of  Israel  and  leads  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  out  of  the  house  of  bondage,  so  help  us  God,  I  will  vote  for 
him  for  the  next  president,  party  or  no  party."    Niles,  LX,  pp.  361,  362 


4:30  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

was  plainly  necessary  that  Tyler  should  have  time  to  grow 
sober.  The  personal  relations  between  him  and  the  leading 
whigs  were  not  yet  broken  off,  and  another  effort  might,  there- 
fore, be  made  cautiously  and  quietly  to  open  his  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  the  following  of  the  advice  of  those  bad  friends  would  in- 
fallibly be  his  political  death.  But  as  the  whigs  would  not  at 
all  have  it,  that  they  had  laid  the  cuckoo's  egg  in  their  own 
nest  themselves,  they  looked  upon  it  as  an  outrageous  and 
unheard  of  imputation,  that  they  should  teach  the  political 
bastard,  with  an  expenditure  of  so  much  patience  and  for- 
bearance, to  play  the  right  tune.  They  not  only  declined 
peremptorily  to  postpone  the  question,  but  with  unexampled 
disregard  of  consequences,  they  urged  it  on  to  a  decision,  a 
second  time.  By  this  means,  they  not  only  gave  the  lie 
themselves  to  their  pretended  participation  in  the  wishes  of 
the  president,  but  they  also  proved  that  they  wished  to  force 
him  to  come  to  a  final  decision  on  the  question,  whether  he 
would  be  directed  by  them  in  his  economic  policy,  or  whether 
he  wished  to  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  them. 

On  Saturday,  the  2l8t  of  August,  after  twelve  o'clock  in 
the  da}'-,  Sergeant,  in  the  house,  moved  the  new  bill  as  an 
amendment  to  the  old.  Why  this  form  was  chosen  appeared 
from  the  further  motion  to  close  the  debates  at  four  o'clock, 
"  in  committee  of  the  whole,"  to  proceed  to  a  vote  and  lay 
the  adopted  amendments  before  the  house.  This  wild  chase 
would  not  have  been  possible  with  an  independent  bill,  since, 
by  the  rules  of  the  house,  each  bill  has  to  be  read  three 
times,  and  each  reading  to  be  had  on  a  different  day.  When 
Roosevelt,  of  New  York,  pilloried  this  party  tyranny  by  the 
motion  to  substitute  the  word  "immediately"  for  "four 
o'clock,"  Sergeant  extended  the  time  to  Monday  at  four 
o'clock.  The  scandal  was  thus  modified  somewhat,  but 
nothing  changed  in  the  matter.*     Rhett,  of  South  Carolina, 

•Ch.  Brown,  of  Pennsylyania,  said:  "The  bill    .    .    .    was  only  laJd 


clay's  attttudk.  431 

therefore,  asked  leave  to  abstain  from  voting,  and  based  his 
request  on  the  declaration  that,  in  the  case  of  a  bill  of  the 
greatest  importance,  thirty-eight  pages  long,  this  mode  of 
procedure  was  a  virtual  destruction  of  the  constitutional 
right  of  discussion.  But  the  majority  did  not  permit  them- 
selves to  be  misled.  Thej  closed  the  debate  on  Monday  as 
the  clock  struck  four,  after  the  greater  part  of  the  short 
space  of  time  had  been  taken  up  by  speakers  from  among 
themselves. 

The  senate  did  not  lag  behind  the  house.  The  house  bill 
would  have  been  referred  to  the  committee  who  had  projected 
the  first  bank  bill,  were  it  not  that  it  pleased  Clay  better  to 
take  things  easily  on  the  pou ting-stool.  Tlie  president  of 
the  senate.  Southard,  of  New  Jersey,  was,  therefore,  instructed 
to  appoint  another  committee,  and  he  composed  it  exclusively 
of  friends  of  the  bank-law — a  course  for  which  more  than 
fifty  years'  history  of  the  senate  afibrded  but  one  single  pre- 
cedent.^ 
'  The  democrats  had  never  done  anything  worse  than  this 

upon  their  desks  about  half  an  hour  before  —  not  ten  minutes  preceding 
the  resolution  prescribing  the  time  when  it  was  to  be  voted  upon;  and  this 
bill  contained  thirty-eight  pages.  It  was  said  to  be  a  new  measure  —  the 
creation  of  a  new  species  of  institution,  a  fiscal  corporation,  hitherto  entirely 
unknown  in  this  country,  either  in  state  legislation  or  that  of  this  gorem- 
ment.  How,  then,  can  any  member  now,  before  he  reads  it,  before  he 
knows  what  it  is,  or  what  it  is  not,  say  that  he  will  be  fully  prepared  to 
give  his  final  vote  upon  it  in  one  or  two  days?  Why  should  he  be  made 
to  say,  before  the  discussion  has  been  begun,  before  the  first  word  is  spoken, 
or  even  the  bill  itself  brought  under  the  consideration  of  the  house,  that  he 
will,  at  a  particular  hour  and  minute,  vote  upon  it?  .  .  .  They  might 
as  well  have  been  asked  to  vote  on  the  bill  yesterday,  before  they  saw  it,  or 
on  any  other  bill  that  the  majority  might  introduce,  at  any  time  before  they 
were  seen  or  known.  ...  It  might  turn  out  to  be  a  war  between  the 
administration  proper,  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue,  and  the  administra* 
tion  improper,  at  this  end  of  the  avenue;  and  there  was  abundant  evidence 
that  this  was  the  only  object  of  the  bill."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  363. 
'  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  337. 


432  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

in  the  days  of  their  power.  But  this  brutal  waste  of  power 
had,  presumably,  no  further  influence  on  the  issue  of  the 
struofo-le.  The  bottom  had  been  knocked  out  of  the  barrel 
even  before  this,  and  once  more  it  was  Botts,  the  hot-headed 
and  indiscreet,  who  wielded  the  lash.  On  the  16th  of  Au- 
gust, but  before  the  veto  message  had  been  handed  in,  he 
had  written  a  letter  to  Richmond,  in  which  he  spoke  of  the 
president  as  a  good-for-nothing  school-boy,  who  would  be 
made  to  feel  the  lash  of  the  strict  whigs,  according  to  his 
deserts.  With  great  self-assurance,  he  announced  that  the 
matter  would  be  settled  that  same  evening.^ 

An  officious  hand  sent  Tyler  a  copy  of  this  letter,  which 
immediately  found  its  way  to  the  press.  The  effect  which 
it  had  on  the  president  was  obvious.  Ewing  relates  that 
Tyler's  intimations  that  he  would  veto  the  second  bill  also, 
had  been  first  made  after  the  letter  had  reached  him,'^  and 
Webster  directly  expresses  the  conviction  that  the  veto  was 
to  be  ascribed  to  it.' 

' "  He  has  turned,  and  twisted,  and  changed  his  ground  so  often  in  his 
conversations,  that  it  is  diflBcult  to  conjecture  which  of  the  absurdities  he 
will  rest  his  veto  upon.  .  .  .  Our  Captain  Tyler  is  making  a  desperate 
effort  to  set  himself  up  with  the  loco-focos,  but  he'U.  be  headed  yet,  and  I 
regret  to  say,  it  will  end  badly  for  him.  He  will  be  an  object  of  execra- 
tion with  both  parties;  with  the  one,  for  vetoing  our  bill,  which  was  bad 
enough — with  the  other,  for  signing  a  worse  one;  but  he  is  hardly  enti- 
tled to  sympathy.  .  .  .  The  veto  will  be  received  without  a  word,  laid 
on  the  table,  and  ordered  to  be  printed.  To-night  we  must  and  will  settle 
matters,  as  quietly  as  possible,  but  they  must  be  settled.  You'll  get  a  bank 
bill,  I  think,  but  one  that  will  serve  only  to  fasten  him,  and  to  which  no 
stock  will  be  subscribed;  and  when  he  finds  out  that  he  is  not  wiser  in 
banking  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  we  may  get  a  better.  The  ex- 
citement here  is  tremendous,  but  it  will  be  smothered  for  the  present." 
Statesm.'8  Man.  11,  pp.  1516,  1517. 

»Niles,  LXI,  p.  34. 

« Mem.  of  J.  Q,  Adams,  XI,  p.  14.  In  a  letter  of  the  25th  of  August,  1841, 
to  the  two  senators  from  Massachusetts,  Webster  had  urgently  advised  that 
the  bank  question  should  be  adjourned  to  the  next  session,  in  consequence 
of  the  letter  of  Botts.    "  From  that  moment,  I  felt  that  it  was  the  duty  oi 


COUESK  OP  THE  MAJOEITT.  433 

Ewing  was  certainly  right  when  he  said  that  Botts's  arro- 
gant boorishness  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  constitutional 
grounds  on  which  the  veto  of  the  9th  of  September  was  based.' 
If  that  letter  was  really  the  occasion  of  the  veto,  Tyler 
unquestionably  deserved  the  severest  blame.  Notwithstand- 
ing this,  Tyler  was  perfectly  justified,  as  president,  in  feeling 
nimself  greatly  insulted  by  the  letter,  and  in  giving  expression 
to  this  feeling  in  his  action,  provided  he  did  so  only  in  the 
proper  place  and  in  the  proper  manner.  It  was  incontesta- 
ble that  the  letter,  both  in  tone  and  contents,  was  entirely  in 
harmony  with  the  manner  in  which  the  majority  had  treated 
the  president  in  reference  to  the  bank  question,  and  both  the 
tone  and  substance  of  the  letter  clearly  manifested  an  inten- 
tion to  force  the  president  from  his  constitutional  position 
as  a  power  coordinate  with  congress.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  a  man,  the  president  had  scarcely  any  ground  of  com- 
plaint; for,  80  far  as  insulting  absence  of  tact,  undignified 
agitation  throngh  the  press,  and  contemptible  trickery,  from 
a  safe  place  of  ambush,  were  concerned,  he  had  himself 
sinned  much  more  grievously.  For  weeks,  the  N&U3  York 
Herald  regaled  the  scandal-seekers  with  reports  from  "Wash- 
ington, which  exhibited  the  president  in  a  halo  of  glory,  and 
dragged  the  cabinet  around  in  the  dust.  The  reports  showed 
so  accurate  a  knowledge  of  the  most  private  matters,  that  they 
must  have  proceeded  from  Tyler's  immediate  environment;' 

the  whiga  to  forbear  from  pressing  the  bank  bill  further,  at  the  present 
lime.  ...  A  decisive  rebuke  ought,  in  my  judgment,  to  be  given  to 
the  intimation,  from  whatever  quarter,  of  a  disposition  among  the  whiga 
to  embarrass  the  president.  This  is  the  main  ground  of  my  opinion;  and 
such  a  rebuke,  I  think,  would  be  found  in  the  general  resolution  of  the 
party  to  postpone  further  proceedings  on  the  subject  to  the  next  session, 
now  only  a  little  more  than  three  months  off."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  55. 

» Statesm.'s  Man.,  H,  pp.  1356-1359. 

•  Ewing  writes:  "  During  this  season  of  deep  feeling  and  earnest  exer- 
tion upon  our  part,  while  we  were  zealously  devotilig  our  talents  and 
influence  to  serve  and  sustain  you,  the  vety  secrets  of  our  cabinet  coonciLs 
28 


434  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

and  "Webster  asserted  that  Tyler's  sons  were  the  probable 
culprits.^ 

On  the  11th  of  September,  four  members  of  the  cabinet 
which  Tyler  had  inherited  from  Harrison — Ewing,  Bell, 
Badger  and  Crittenden  — handed  in  their  resignation.  Crit- 
tenden contented  himself  with  sending  a  letter  couched  in 
few  and  general  terms.  The  others,  on  the  contrary,  ex- 
pressly said,  in  their  exhaustive  statement  of  reasons,''  that 
they  would  not  have  considered  a  difference  of  opinion  with 
the  president  on  the  constitutionality  or  expediency  of  a 
bank,  of  itself,  a  sufficient  ground  for  their  withdrawal.  They 
based  their  resignation  entirely  on  the  want  of  uprightness 
which  Tyler  had  shown  during  all  these  transactions,  and  on 
the  want  of  consideration  with  which  he  had  treated  them 
personally,  while  they  were  pending.  Notwithstanding  this, 
"Webster  claimed  that  this  simultaneous  resignation  would 
force  the  people  to  choose  between  Clay  and  Tyler.^  "Webster 
himself  declared  to  the  representatives  of  Massachusetts  in 
congress  that,  in  his  opinion,  there  was  no  reason  why  he 
should  resign/  but  asked  their  advice  before  he  came  to  a 
final  decision.  They  unanimously  called  on  him  to  remain 
in  office.*  Adams  based  his  advice  —  as  "Webster  subse- 
quently did  his  resolve  —  on  the  controversies  pending  with 
England,  to  settle  which  he  was  peculiarly  well  adapted.' 

made  their  appearance  in  an  infamous  paper,  printed  in  a  neighboringr 
city,  the  columns  of  which  were  daily  charged  with  flattery  of  yourself  and 
foul  abuse  of  your  cabinet." 

•  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XT,  p.  14.    See,  also,  p.  16. 

'  These  were,  in  part,  not  contained  in  the  letters  of  resignation,  but 
were  sent  to  the  press  after  a  few  days. 

' "  It  was  a  Clay  movement  to  make  up  an  issue  before  the  people  against 
Tyler."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  14. 

•  Benton  said  it  was  "  entirely  certain  "  that  Webster  at  first  declared 
himself  ready  to  withdraw  with  his  colleagues,  bat  does  not  produce  a 
single  witness  for  the  statement.    Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  354,  356. 

» Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Ad'ams,  XI,  p.  14. 

•  *•  He  [Gushing]  knew  that  my  advice  to  Mr.  Webster  to  retain  his 


THE   WHIG    "manifesto."  435 

"Webster's  resolve  determined  a  portion  of  the  northern 
whigs  to  comport  themselves  with  a  certain  reserve  and 
moderation.  The  rest  of  the  whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  and 
especially  those  from  the  west,  now  gave  full  rein  to  their 
wrath.^  They  were  not  satisfied  with  venting  all  their  gall 
during  the  last  hours  of  the  session  on  Tyler's  "perfidy" 
and  "  treason."  Immediately  after  the  adjournment  of 
congress,  there  appeared  an  address  of  the  "  whig  represent- 
atives in  the  two  houses  of  congress  "  to  the  people.^  Only 
about  fifty  members  had  attended  the  caucus  ^  which  had 
resolved  on  this  "  manifesto."  As  no  objection  was  raised 
to  it,*  it  had  to  be  taken  as  a  declaration  of  the  party's  position, 
which  was  thus  determined  by  the  more  extreme  portion  of  it 

place  last  September  .  .  .  was  founded  exdosively  on  the  belief  that 
Mr.  Webster's  signally  conciliatory  temper  and  disposition  towards  Engf- 
land  was  indispensably  necessary  to  save  us  from  a  most  disastrous  and 
calamitous  war  upon  that  wretched  question  about  the  state  right  of  New 
York  to  hang  McLeod."  Ibid  ,  p.  36.  The  result  confirmed  the  view  of 
Adams  and  his  colleagues.  The  negotiations  with  England,  carried  on  by 
Webster,  are  the  most  briUiant  side  of  Tyler's  administrat'on.  Neither 
the  McLeod  matter  nor  the  northeastern  boundary  question  is  without  its 
interest  from  the  point  of  view  of  constitutional  law.  But  as  they  exer- 
cised no  influence  on  the  pohtical  development  of  the  Union,  it  seems 
proper  to  pass  them  over  here,  and  to  treat  of  them  in  the  part  which  shall 
contain  the  systematic  exposition  of  the  constitutional  law  of  the  Union. 
The  other  controversies  with  England  we  shall  meet  later  in  connection 
with  other  events. 

>  J.  J.  Crittenden  to  R.  P.  Letcher,  Washmgton,  Sept.  11, 1841 :  "  There 
in  great  firmness  and  great  excitement  among  the  whigs  in  congress,  and  a 
more  resolute  union  among  them,  except,  perhaps,  as  to  a  portion  of  the 
northern  whigs,  who  are  held  in  a  sort  of  neutrality  and  suspense  by  the 
course  of  Mr.  Webster.  The  whig  members  from  the  great  west  are,  to  a 
man,  united,  fierce  and  denunciatory  towards  Mr.  Tyler."  Coleman, 
life  of  Crittenden,  I.    I  have  forgotten  to  note  the  page. 

» Niles,  LXI,  pp.  35  and  36. 

•Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  35. 

'The  Cushing's  counter  manifesto  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  such,  u  he 
had  previously  gone  over  entirely  to  the  "corporal's  guaxd." 


436  Jackson's  administbation'  —  AKirEXATioisr  of  texas. 

This  fact  could  not  be  covered  np  by  the  unctuous  assur- 
ance that,  now  as  well  as  previously,  the  measures  of  the 
administration  were  weighed  without  prejudice,  and  should 
meet  with  opposition  only  when  "  a  high  sense  of  public 
duty  "  demanded  it.^  The  address  did  not  assume  the  po- 
sition to  which  the  retiring  members  of  the  cabinet  had 
committed  themselves.  Every  word  of  it  breathed  war,  and 
a  war  in  which,  as  in  the  contests  with  Jackson,  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  constitution  were  in  issue.  Of 
course,  the  address  also  severely  and  unreservedly  censured 
Tyler's  indirect,  reserved  course,  in  befooling  congress  and 
the  nation,  for  over  three  months,  holding  them  in  suspense 
between  yes  and  no.  But  it  did  not  stop  here.  It  announced 
the  formal  and  complete  separation  of  the  whig  party  from 
the  president,^  for  the  reason  that  he  had  opposed  the  bank 
policy  of  congress.  And  the  address  saw  in  this  not  only  a 
betrayal  of  the  party  to  whose  policy,  it  claimed,  Tyler  had 
unconditionally  pledged  himself,  but  declared  it  to  be  an 
attempt  also  by  the  executive  on  the  legislative  power,  if 
not  in  contravention  of  the  letter,  in  contravention  of  the 
spirit  of  the  constitution.  It  not  only  complained  that  the 
president  had  made  use  of  his  veto  power  in  this  instance,  but 
condemned  the  fact  that  he  could  make  use  of  the  veto  power 
in  such  cases.     It  declared  war  not  only  against  the  existing 

'  "  And  it  will  be  the  duty  of  the  whigs,  in  and  out  of  congress,  to  give 
to  his  oflBcial  acts  and  measures  fair  and  full  consideration,  approving  them 
and  coBperating  in  their  support  where  they  can,  and  differing  from  and 
opposing  any  of  them  only  from  a  high  sense  of  public  duty." 

•'*  .  .  .  We  are  constrained  to  say,  that  the  president  .  .  has 
Tolontarily  separated  himself  from  those  by  whose  exertions  and  suffrages 
he  was  elevated  to  that  oflBcc  through  which  he  reached  his  present  ex- 
alted station.  .  .  ,  The  first  consequence  ia,  that  those  who  brought 
the  president  into  power  can  be  no  longer,  in  any  manner  or  degree,  justly 
held  responsible  or  blamed  for  the  administration  of  the  executive  branch 
of  the  government;  and  that  the  president  and  his  advisers  should  be  ex- 
clusively hereafter  deemed  accountable." 


POSITION   OF   PAETIES. 


437 


veto  power,^  but  it  represented  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  party 
to  bring  about  its  lasting  curtailment  on  principle,  !jo  as 
henceforth  to  secure  the  •'  obedience  "  of  the  executive  to  the 
"  public  will "  as  it  found  expression  in  congress.* 

Half  a  year  had  passed  since  the  whigs  had  taken  hold  of 
tlie  helm,  and  the  unprincipled  policy  which  had  selected 
"  change  "  for  its  programme,  in  order  to  bring  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  opposition  under  one  captain,  had  reaped  a  very 
rich  harvest.  The  breach  between  the  party  and  the  president 
had  taken  place;  the  action  of  the  president  as  well  as  of 
the  party  was  in  great  part  crippled  before  it  had  rightly 
begun,  and  the  condition  of  the  party  had  received  a  blow, 
the  after-effects  of  which  escaped  all  calculation.  On  the  left 
were  the  democrats,  full  of  contempt  for  the  two-fold  half- 
renegadism  of  the  president,  but  making  the  very  most  of  it; 
without  the  moral  i-esponsibility  of  the  governing  majority, 
but  exercising  a  greater  influence  on  legislation  than  a  minor- 
ity ever  did  before;  in  the  centre,  the  chief  of  the  republic, 
surrounded  by  a  little  crowd  of  unscrupulous  aspirants,  vainly 
wearing  himself  out  in  the  endeavor  with  the  help  of  the 
spoils-cement  to  form  a  compound  of  both  party  programmes 
as  the  basis  of  a  third  party,  a  Tyler  party;  to  the  right,  the 

'  "  We  grieve  to  say  to  you  that  by  the  exercise  of  that  power  in  the  con- 
stitution which  has  ever  been  regarded  with  suspicion,  and  often  with 
odium,  by  the  people  —  a  power  which  we  had  hoped  was  never  to  be  ex- 
hibited on  this  subject  —  we  have  been  defeated  in  two  attempts  to  create 
a  fiscal  agent.  .  .  .  The  brazen-faced  assertion  is  then  made: 
"  Twice  have  we,  with  the  utmost  diligence  and  deliberation,  matured  a 
plan  for  the  collection,"  etc.,  etc. 

* "  At  the  head  of  the  duties  which  remain  for  the  whigs  to  perform  to- 
wards their  country,  stands  conspicuously  and  preeminently  above  all  others : 
First,  a  reduction  of  the  executive  power,  by  a  further  limitation  of  the 
veto,  so  as  to  secure  obedience  to  the  public  will,  as  that  shall  be  expressed 
by  the  immediate  representatives  of  the  people  and  the  states,  with  no 
other  control  than  that  which  is  indispensable  to  avert  hasty  or  unconsti- 
tutional legislation." 


438  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

whigs,  blindly  embittered  at  their  own  powerless  supremacy, 
grasping  at  the  radical  democratic  thunder  of  their  oppo- 
nents, and  perverting  the  principle  of  resistance  to  the  usur- 
pations of  the  executive  into  the  principle  of  the  establish- 
ment of  the  omnipotence  of  congress. 

If  this  mad  entangled  set  of  dancers  continued  to  move 
with  the  same  rapidity  for  over  three  years  more,  they  would 
dance  pretty  close  to  party  anarchy.  But  this  was  provided 
for.  Back  of  the  politicians  stood  the  people,  and  the 
people  by  no  means  shared  the  excitement  of  the  politicians. 
And  this  very  fact  contributed  materially  to  drive  the  ex- 
citement of  the  politicians  to  fever  heat.  The  whigs  not 
only  saw  themselves  deprived  of  the  hoped-for  fruits  of  the 
last  victory,  but  they  also  feared  for  the  existence  of  their 
party .^  If  this  fear  were  not  an  empty  phantom,  there  was 
only  one  imaginable  reason  for  it:  the  whigs  acknowledged 
in  their  hearts  that  there  was  not  an  "immense  majority  of 
the  people  "  who  wanted  a  bank,  but  that  rather  an  indiffer- 
ence had  begun  to  prevail  in  relation  to  it  which  did  not 
seem  to  permit  a  coming  together  anew  of  the  party,  at  least 
on  the  ground  of  this  question,  unless  the  possibility  aiforded 
by  the  last  elections  could  be  turned  to  account.  So  far  as 
it  depended  on  the  bank  question,  another  and  more  violent 
final  catastrophe  in  party  affairs  was  not  probable,  but 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  the  whig  party  would  be  attacked 
by  consumption.  But  if  the  whigs  perished  from  the  ab- 
sence of  a  programme,  the  days  of  the  old  democratic  party 
also  were  necessarily  numbered,  for  then  and  on  that  ac- 
count, their  jjrogramme  also  would  have  lost  its  capacity  to 

'  Adams  writes,  a  few  days  after  the  first  veto:  "  The  veto  message  and 
its  inevitable  consequences  will  utterly  prostrate  the  administration  and 
the  party  by  which  it  was  brought  in."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  533. 
And  he  closes  his  report  of  the  Webster  consultation  with  the  representa- 
tives of  Massachusetts  with  the  words:  "We  all  felt  that  the  hour  for  the 
requiem  of  the  whig  party  was  at  hand."    Ibid.,  XI,  p.  14. 


DEMOCRATIC   GAINS.  439 

live.  Tlie  next  political  autumn  had  to  ripen  the  fruits 
of  the  seed  scattered  in  the  trenches  during  the  breakins:  of 
the  ground.  This  it  is  which  makes  the  extraordinary  ses- 
sion of  cono:ress  in  the  summer  of  1841  the  beffinninfr  of  the 
end  of  the  third  great  period  in  the  internal  course  of  de- 
velopment of  the  Union, 

Clay  did  not  want  to  admit  now  that  the  whigs  were  se- 
verely injured  by  the  conflict  with  the  president,  or  he,  at 
least,  endeavored  to  convince  his  friends  of  the  contrary,  that 
they  might  not  be  disheartened.  He  claimed,  immediately 
after  the  adjournment  of  congress,  that  the  cause  of  the  whigs 
was  stronger  than  ever.^  The  results  of  the  fall  elections 
badly  accorded  with  this  hopeful,  joyous  view  of  the  situ- 
ation. Of  seven  states  which  had  voted  for  Harrison  in  the 
presidential  election,  the  democrats  now  gained  five.'  They 
rejoiced  at  the  "overwhelming reaction."^  But  Clay  tried  to 
console  himself  and  others  by  saying  that  their  opponents 
had  not  become  stronger,  but  that  only  the  whigs  had  re- 
mained away  from  the  ballot-boxes.* 

It  was  not  a  matter  of  indifference  in  what  way  the  whigs 
accounted  to  themselves  for  this  defeat,  for  on  this  it  must 
have  in  great  part  depended  whether  they  would  use  greater 
moderation  henceforth  towards  the  president,  or  become 
more  sturdy  in  their  opposition  to  him.     There  was  no  lack 

"*  I  am,  gentlemen,  greatly  deceived,  notwithstanding  the  astounding 
developments  recently  made,  if  the  whig  cause  is  not  stronger  than  it  ever 
was."  Answer  to  a  letter  of  invitation  to  Baltimore,  September  14,  1841. 
NUes,  LXI,  p.  67. 

•Badger's  speech  at  Raleigh,  Nov.  13.  Nilea,  LXI,  p.  219.  Indiana, 
Vermont,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Maine.    Ibid.,  p.  162. 

•  •*  They  [the  people]  have  arisen  in  the  majesty  of  theur  strength,  and 
the  reaction  has  been  overwhelming  from  one  end  of  the  Union  to  the 
other."    C.  C.  Qay,  of  Alabama.     Ibid.,  p.  219. 

*  He  explains  this  by  the  following:  "An  army  which  believes  itself 
betrayed  by  its  commander-in-chief  will  never  fight  well  imder  him  or 
while  he  remains  in  authority."    Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  456. 


440  Jackson's  ADanNiSTUATioN  —  aito'exation  of  texas. 

of  causes  for  new  collisions.  There  was  a  bad  prospect  of 
the  fulfillment  of  the  dazzling  promises  which  the  party  had 
made  in  the  electoral  campaign  of  1840.  The  financial  con- 
dition of  the  country  was  a  sad  one,  and  grew  sadder  every 
day.  The  message  of  June  1,  1841,  informed  the  people 
that  the  year  would  probably  close  with  a  deficit  of  over 
eleven  million  dollars.^  It  did  not,  however,  speak  of  the 
promised  retrenchment  and  saving.  Eather  were  the  de- 
mands of  the  administration  largely  increased.  To  satisfy 
these  "  wants,"  "  some  temporary  provision  "  was  declared  to 
be  necessary  until  the  excess  of  receipts  which  was  certainly 
expected  had  actually  set  in.  Congress  had,  in  what  was 
essential,  adopted  the  views  of  the  administration  on  these 
questions,  and  authorized  &  loan  of  twelve  millions.* 

Whether  it  was  justifiable,  or  even  necessary,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  increase  the  budget  of  expenses  and  to 
procure  in  this  way  the  means  of  meeting  the  increased  de- 
mands, need  not  be  examined  here.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
people  had  not  expected  this,  when  they  were  promised  a 
reduction  of  millions  and  millions,  and  they  could  scarcely 
find  words  to  express  their  moral  indignation  at  the  dissolute 
prodigality  of  Yan  Buren's  administration.  Much  as  was 
made  of  these  assumed  obligations,  it  was  not  possible  to 
shift  everything  on  to  them.  If  the  whigs  had  not  given 
themselves  up  to  the  belief  that  the  masses  would  soon  re- 
proach them  with  having  led  the  people  out  of  the  frying- 
pan  into  the  fire,  they  must  have  been,  with  the  president, 
very  firmly  convinced  that  they  had  to  do  with  only  a  very 
transitory  difiiculty.  They  really  seemed  to  be  of  this  opinion, 
since  they  did  not  hesitate  to  give  away  even  what  they  still 
had,  without  any  external  compulsory  necessity.  A  law  of 
September  4,  1841,  ordered  the  division  of  the  net  product 

» State8m.'8  Man.,  II,  p.  1343. 

•  Law  of  July  21,  1841;  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  438. 


SALE  OF  PUBLIC  LANDS.  441 

of  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands  among  the 
states.^ 

People  had  been  divided  for  years  ou  the  question,  whether 
the  government  of  the  Union  had  the  right  to  make  such  a 
disposition  of  these  proceeds.  The  whigs,  who  took  the  af- 
firmative of  the  question,  relied  on  the  principle  that  the 
public  lands  were  the  property  in  common  of  the  states,  and 
they  claimed  besides  that  the  supreme  court  of  the  United 
States,  in  the  case  of  Jackson  vs.  Clarh,  had  decided  the  con- 
troversy in  their  favor.  This  last,  however,  they  would 
scarcely  have  literally  understood.  This  question  was  not 
before  the  court  at  all,  and  in  the  opinion  there  occurred  only 
one  sentence  which  seemed  to  recoajnize  the  view  of  the  whisrs 
in  relation  to  the  lands  ceded  by  Yirginia  as  the  correct  one.' 
What  was  true  of  these  was  by  no  means  necessarily  true  of  the 
territory  ceded  by  the  other  states,  since  the  words  of  the  Yir- 
ginia ceding  original  document,  on  which  the  supreme  court  of 
the  United  States  relied,  was  not  to  be  found  in  the  others. 
Moreover,  the  Union  had  not,  by  any  means,  acquired  all  the 
public  lands  by  cessions  of  the  separate  states,  but  the  greater 
part  of  them  had  been  purchased.     There  was,  therefore,  not 

»Stat.  at  L.,  V,  pp.  45^-458. 

'  "  The  residue  of  the  lands  are  ceded  to  the  United  States,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  said  states,  *  to  be  considered  as  a  common  fund  for  the  use  and 
benefit  of  such  of  the  United  States  as  have  become,  or  shall  become  mem- 
bers of  the  confederation  or  federal  alliance  of  the  said  states,  Virginia  in- 
clusive, according  to  their  usual  respective  proportions  in  the  general 
charge  and  expenditure;  and  shall  be  faithfully  and  bona  fide  disposed  of 
for  that  purpose,  and  for  no  other  use  or  purpose  whatever.'  The  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  then  received  this  territory  in  trust,  not  only  for 
the  Virginia  troops  on  the  continental  estabUshroent,  but  also  for  the  use 
and  benefit  of  the  members  of  the  confederation."  Peters'  Rep.,  I,  pp. 
C34,  635;  Curtis,  VII,  pp.  738,  739.  Calhoun,  in  opposition  to  this  view, 
emphasized  the  words  "common  fund,"  and  called  attention  also  to  the 
fact  that  the  cession  took  place  under  the  articles  of  confederation,  and 
that,  therefore,  not  a  division  but  only  a  wiping  out  of  the  quota  of  the 
taxation  of  the  states  was  contemplated.    Works,  III,  pp.  562-565. 


442  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

even  a  judicial  dictum,  to  saj  nothing  of  a  judicial  decision, 
in  opposition  to  the  democratic  view,  that  the  public  lands 
were  the  property  of  the  states  in  the  aggregate.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  unconstitutionality  of  the  law  of  the  4:th  of 
September  did  not  at  all  follow  directly  from  this  assump- 
tion. When  the  democrats  said  that  the  Federal  government 
was  not  empowered  to  impose  taxes  on  the  people,  in  order 
to  divide  their  proceeds  among  the  states,  they  may  have  been 
right;  but  the  sale  of  the  public  lands  was  no  tax.  If  what 
they  brought  in  was  divided,  the  taxes  would  certainly  have 
to  be  higher,  by  the  same  amount,  than  would  have  been 
otherwise  necessary.  The  division  was,  therefore,  perhaps 
impolitic  and  unwarranted,  but  that  did  not  prove  its  uncon- 
stitutionality. The  old  principle,  that  the  Federal  govern- 
ment could  not  do  indirectly  what  it  had  no  authority  to  do 
directly,  thus  absolutely  stated,  was,  in  this  case,  as  little  ap- 
plicable as  in  most  other  cases.  This  was  a  thing  of  every 
day  occurrence,  and  it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  it 
should  occur  constantly.  If  congress  could  pass  only  such 
laws  as  could  not  possibly  draw  after  them  indirectly  any 
consequence  to  produce  which  directly  it  had  no  right,  con- 
gress could  make  no  laws  whatever. 

No  certain  answer  to  the  above  legal  question  could  be 
found  in  the  constitution,  for  the  reason  that  the  framers  of 
the  constitution  had  not  contemplated  the  possibility  that 
such  a  question  could  ever  arise.  Recourse  had,  therefore, 
to  be  had  to  a  Ions:  series  of  more  or  less  assailable  deduc- 
tions,  and  the  result  depended  on  the  starting  point,  for 
which  any  clause  of  the  constitution  might  be  chosen  at 
pleasure.  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  equally  acute 
and  equally  honest  men  came  to  directly  opposite  conclu- 
sions. But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  surprising  to  see  the 
states -righters  defend  the  national  principle  in  this  contro- 
versy.    But  the  explanation  of  this  it  is  not  hard  to  find. 


"eepudiation."  443 

The  old  contrast  between  the  economic  policy  of  the  two 
parties  had  found  a  new  expression  here.  Revenue  tariff 
and  protective  duties  were  confronted,  one  with  the  other,* 
for  the  minus  caused  by  the  distribution  of  the  net  pro- 
ceeds from  the  public  lands  had  to  be  covered  by  a  cor- 
responding ^Zi/5  in  the  proceeds  of  the  taxes.  These,  how- 
ever, were  not  the  only  considerations.  Precisely  at  this 
moment,  forces  appeared  in  the  foreground  which  were  in- 
deed calculated  to  make  the  patriot  with  alarm,  and  the 
statesman  with  anxious  doubt,  weigh  the  reasons  for  and 
against,  with  the  utmost  care. 

The  after-effects  of  the  crisis  of  1837  and  1839  had  not 
vet  disappeared,  and,  in  one  respect,  they  had  now  only 
readied  their  culminating  point.  Several  of  the  states  were 
on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy,  or  were  already  bankrupt,  and 
some  of  them  were  preparing  to  wipe  out  the  scores  against 
them  with  the  sponge.^  Mississippi  could  boast  of  having 
led  the  way  in  this  direction.^  The  word  "  repudiation  "  was 
first  used  by  Governor  McNutt  in  his  message  of  January, " 
1841.  The  legal  pretext  for  his  recommendation,"  he  found 
in  the  fact  that  the  commissioners  of  the  Mississippi  Union 
Bank  had  sold  five  millions  worth  of  bonds,  without  reck- 
oning the  accrued  interest,  to  Nicholas  Biddle,  on  the  18th 
of  August,  1838,  while  they  were  authorized  to  sell  them 
only  at  par.*    The  legislature  did  not  share  the  governor's 

'  See  Calhoun's  speech  of  the  5tb  of  February,  1840,  Works,  III,  pp.  407- 
439. 

'Wm.  Cost  Johnson  estimated,  According  to  the  sources  accessible  to 
him,  the  amount  of  the  state  debts  on  the  25th  of  June,  1842,  at  $185,- 
292,379.  But  he  himself  produces  proof  that  the  real  amount  was  consid- 
erably higher  still.    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  199. 

•The  figures  in  the  text  are,  where  other  sources  are  not  cited,  taken 
from  the  excellent  article  in  the  January,  1846,  number  of  the  North 
American  Review. 

*See  McNutt's  justification  of  his  standpoint  as  against  Hope  &  Co.,  of 
Amsterdam,  Hazard  U.  St.  Commercial  and  Statistical  Register,  August, 
1841,  voL  V,  pp.  97,  98. 


4AA  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

views.  But  the  state  constitution  provided  that  a  loan  for 
the  payment  of  debts  should  be  made  only  when  it  was  re- 
solved on  by  two  legislatures  in  succession.  McXutt,  there- 
fore, renewed  his  demand  in  his  message  of  January,  1842,' 
and  this  time  the  leo'islature  agreed  with  him.^ 

Next  to  Mississippi,  it  fared  worst  with  Michigan,  which 
also  repudiated  a  portion  of  its  debt  when  the  Bank  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  the  Morris  Canal  and  Banking  Company  col- 
lapsed. Louisiana  also  allowed  itself  to  pass  somewhat  du- 
bious laws  in  relation  to  a  part  of  its  debt.  In  Pennsylvania, 
the  laws  were,  perhaps,  a  little  less  objectionable,  but  the 
state  did  not  pay.  Indiana  and  Illinois  could  allege,  as  an 
excuse,  that,  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  they  could  not  pay.' 

The  significance  of  these  facts  for  the  whole  Union  was 
not  ignored.  A  greater  public  calamity  had  never  before 
fallen  on  the  country.  How  great  the  check  which  its  eco- 
nomic development  would  have  to  suffer  would  be,  if  it  were 
lienceforth  to  be  deprived  of  the  money  of  Europe,  it  was 
impossible  to  calculate.  And  had  not  European  capitalists 
to  begin  now  to  look  upon  the  United  States  as  the  lion's 
den  out  of  which  no  track  was  to  be  found?  And  this  was 
by  far  the  smallest  matter.  The  honor  of  the  nation  was  at 
stake,  and  if  it  were  lost,  not  a  fig  leaf  could  have  been  found 
anywhere  which  would  have  covered  its  nakedness,  even 
where  it  was  most  urgently  needed.     How  loudly  had  it 

•  Niles,  LXI,  p.  336. 

*  The  Union  Bank  itself  had  asked  Charles  Scott  for  a  professional  opinion . 
See  that  opinion  in  Hazard,  1.  c,  Sept.,  1841,  V,  pp.  129-134.  It  closes 
with  the  words:  '*  In  every  aspect  in  which  I  am  capable  of  viewing  this 
grave  and  important  question,  I  am  fuUy  convinced  that  the  state  is  mor- 
ally, politically  and  legally  bound  to  discharge  her  bonds  and  redeem  her 
plighted  faith," 

» Indiana  had  700,000  mhabitants  and  a  debt  of  |13,000,000j  lUmois 
had  a  population  of  only  500,000,  and  a  burthen  of  debt  just  as  gpreat  as 
Indiana. 


"eepitdiation."  445 

been  always  boasted  that  no  country  on  earth  had  been  more 
richly  blessed  by  nature,  and  what  dazzling  proof  of  the  cor- 
rectness of  this  assertion  each  day  had  produced!     To  talk 
of  a  permanept  inability,  therefore,  to  redeem  the  obligations 
entered  into,  was  to  add  bold  insult  to  injury.     And  what 
besides  the  old  saying  of  Washington  could  the  United  States 
adduce  in  their  behalf:  "We  are  one  nation  to-day  and  to- 
morrow thirteen."     Did  not  the  nation,  therefore,  constantly 
run  tlie  risk  that  European  states  might,  on  every  occasion, 
inquire,  whether  the  representatives  of  the  Union  were  ac- 
credited "  only  "  by  the  government  of  the  Union,  or  by  all 
the  separate  states.     The  creditors  demanded  of  the  Federal 
government  that  it  should  help  them  to  get  their  rights.     As 
early  as  the  summer  of  1839,  Webster,  during  his  sojourn  in 
England,  was  asked  what  was  to  be  expected  in  this  regard. 
Men  like  Adams  were  of  the  conviction  that  the  Federal 
government  would  be  not  only  justified  in  ctmipelling  the 
states  through  the  courts  to  meet  their  obligations,  but  that  it 
would  be  its  duty  to  do  so.     Others  asked  themselves  whether, 
in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  creditors,  it  should  not 
be  resolved  that  the  Union  should  assume  the  debts  of  the 
states.     There  were  only  a  few,  however,  who  considered  this 
possible.     In  this  way,  not  only  would  the  opposition  of 
those  who  preferred  dishonor  to  payment  and  of  those  who 
had  always  considered  that  great  political  feat  of  Hamilton 
an  ominous  breach  of  the  constitution  be  aroused.     Many 
who  entertained  no  doubt  of  tlie  authority,  and  who  perfectly 
appreciated  the  salutary  consequences  of  the  funding  act  and 
assumption  bill,  were  decidedly  opposed  to  cutting  the  knot 
in  this  way  now.     They  looked  upon  it  as  the  offering  of  a 
premium  for  the  most  careless  and  most  unscrupulous  man- 
agement by  the  states  which  were  entirely  removed  from  the 
control  of  the  Federal  government,  and  which  no  one  wished 
to  bring  under  the  control  of  the  federal  authorities.     A 


44:6  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

constantly  increasing  majority  of  the  people  became  entirely 
clear  in  their  07?n  minds  of  this  one  thing,  that  the  honor  ol' 
the  nation  had  to  be  saved,  and  it  came  to  be  more  and  more 
confidently  expected  that  the  force  of  public  opinion  would 
prove  strong  enough  to  lead  the  guilty  states  back  to  the 
path  of  duty.  But  this  confidence  was'  not  to  be  a  downy 
pillow  of  rest.  Men  bethought  themselves  of  means  to  facil- 
itate the  return,  and  many  believed  they  had  found  such  a 
means  in  the  pnblic  lands.  There  were  some  all  the  more 
in  favor  of  seeing  them  thus  applied,  because  they  considered 
a  return  to  a  healthy  management  of  the  finances  scarcely 
possible  so  long  as  this  item  which  varied  between  such  wide 
limits  was  not  taken  out  of  the  federal  budget.  The  creditors 
gave  it  to  be  understood  in  the  most  undoubted  manner  that 
they  would  look  upon  it  with  lively  satisfaction  if  their  cause 
was  supported  in  this  indirect  way,  far  as  it  was  removed 
froTn  a  real  guaranty.^  But  precisely  their  strenuous  efforts 
to  carry  the  measure  afforded  the  opponents  of  the  distribu- 
tion a  new  ground  for  opposition.  Benton  and  others  de- 
claimed with  forced  pathos  against  the  disgraceful  scene  of 
foreigners  in  the  galleries  exercising  an  influence  on  the 
legislation  of  the  country.  That  these  foreigners  had  come 
after  their  clear  rights  was  forgotten  by  the  severely  moral 
Missourian,  who  liked  to  say  of  himself:     "  I  am  as  proud  as 

'  Benton,  in  the  senate,  read  the  following  senttmces  from  a  newspaper 
article:  "At  the  commencement  of  the  session  almost  every  foreign  house 
had  a  representative  here.  Wilson,  Palmer,  Ciyder,  Bates,  Willinck, 
Hope,  Jaudon,  and  a  host  of  others,  came  over  on  various  pretenses;  all 
were  in  attendance  at  Washington,  and  all  seeking  to  forward  the  proposed 
measures.  The  land  bill  was  to  give  them  three  millions  per  annum  from 
tiie  public  treasury,  or  thirty  millions  in  ten  years,  and  to  raise  the  value 
of  the  stock  at  least  thirty  millions  more.  The  revenue  bill  was  to  have 
supplied  the  deficiency  in  the  treasury.  The  loan  biU  was  to  have  been 
the  basis  of  an  increase  of  importations  and  of  exchange  operations;  ixnd 
the  new  bank  was  the  instrument  of  putting  the  whole  in  operation.'' 
Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  243. 


THE   DISTEIBUTION   BILL.  447 

a  Roman  Senator."  But  there  were  people  enough  who  lent 
an  ear  to  every  reason  advanced.  The  old  constitutional 
scruples^  still  preponderated  with  those  who  needed  assist- 
ance most.  Others  were  of  opinion  that  the  Federal  govern- 
ment should  not  rush  to  the  assistance  of  the  states  so  long 
as  it  could  not  provide  better  for  its  own  wants.  Lastly, 
there  were  others  who  thought  that  this  assistance  would 
operate  like  a  weak  jet  of  water,  which  only  adds  to  the  glow- 
ing heat  of  a  great  fire;  that  the  means  offered  the  states  to 
lighten  their  burthens  were  not  worth  talking  about,*^  and  the 
fact  that  the  general  government  rushed  to  their  assistance  in 
the  case  of  need  brought  on  them  by  their  own  fault,  might 
very  easily  make  them  only  all  the  more  hardened  in  their 
sins.  All  these  different  elements,  taken  together,  were  pow- 
erful enough  to  prevent  the  passage  of  the  "  distribution 
bill."  If  it  were  to  be  carried,  it  was  necessary  to  find  some 
compensation  which  might  help  a  sufficient  number  of  mem- 
bers of  congress  out  of  their  fears.  The  parliamentary  Jew's 
traffic  with  which  a  beginning  that  promised  much  had  been 
made,^  attained,  in  consequence  of  this,  to  an  extraordinarily 
flourishing  state,  during  the  summer  session  of  1841. 

'  Benton  may  serve  as  an  example  to  show  how  far  these  were  carried. 
He  exclaims:  "  It  is  not  a  case  of  misunderstanding  the  constitution,  but 
of  assault  and  battery  —  of  maim  and  murder — of  homicide  and  assassi- 
nation—  committed  upon  it."    Ibid.,  II,  p.  244. 

« See  Woodbury's  Writ.,  I,  p.  207. 

^  Profiit  claimed  that  it  was  at  first  contemplated  to  have  the  biU  on  the 
abolition  of  the  "independent  treasury"  signed  by  the  president  on  the 
4  111  of  July,  because  Van  Buren  had  signed  the  bill  establishing  it  on 
that  day.  But,  in  consequence  of  the  report  that  the  bill  would  not  be 
approved,  its. passage  was  delayed  in  order  by  all  means  to  bring  a  pres- 
sure to  bear  on  Tyler.  It  was  said  that  it  was  pushed  through  at  the  right 
moment  by  means  of  the  "previous  question,"  "and  then  we  heard  the 
exulting  cry,  'we  have  the  president  fastened  now;  he  cannot  veto  the 
bank  bill  and  sign  the  repeal  of  the  sub-treasury;  that  will  leave  the  ^ub- 
Lc  money  under  his  control,  and  we  wiU  charge  him  with  having  in  view 


v^ 


448  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Benton  relates  that  there  were  in  the  United  States  at  the 
time  lOOjOOO  bankrupt  business  men  whose  engaging  in  trade 
once  more  was  possible  only  on  condition  that  a  law  was  passed 
freeing  them  from  their  burthen  of  debt.  Not  only,  as  he 
said,  did  the  number  of  these  unfortunates  make  them  a 
power,^  but  a  calamity,  which,  in  the  public  interest,  should 
be  relieved  if  possible.  It  suggested  itself  readily  to  en- 
deavor to  accomplish  this  by  having  congress  make  use  of 
the  power  it  possessed  to  pass  a  general  bankrupt  law. 
Webster  was  determined,  in  the  first  place,  by  tliis  consider- 
ation of  the  public  interest  in  relation  to  the  extraordinary 
necessity,  when  he  introduced  a  bankrupt  bill  in  the  senate 
on  the  first  of  April,  ISiO.'^     In  quick  succession,  a  large 

that  object.'  "Well,  sir,  the  bank  bill  has  been  vetoed,  and  the  result  is  as 
anticipated.  You  now  talk  about  'union  of  purse  and  sword,' declaim 
about  monarchical  powers,  and  accuse  the  president  of  being  the  cause  oi 
a  state  of  things  which  your  legislation  produced  and  purposely  aimed  at." 
Niles,  LXI,  pp.  94,  95. 

'Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  234. 

"*  I  am  free  to  confess  my  leading  object  to  be,  to  relieve  those  who  are 
at  present  bankrupts,  hopeless  bankrupts,  and  who  cannot  be  discharged 
or  set  free  but  by  a  bankrupt  act  passed  by  congress.  I  confess  that  their 
case  forms  the  great  motive  of  my  conduct.  It  is  their  case  which  haa  cre- 
ated the  general  cry  for  the  measure.  Not  that  their  interest  is  opposed 
to  the  interest  of  creditors;  still  less  that  it  is  opposed  to  the  general  good 
of  the  country.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  the  interest  of  creditors 
would  be  greatly  beneBted  even  by  a  system  of  voluntary  bankruptcy 
alone,  and  I  am  quite  confident  that  the  public  good  would  be  eminently 
promoted.  In  my  judgment,  aU  interests  concur."  Webst.'s  Works,  V, 
p.  18.  "  And  between  this  want  of  power  in  the  states  and  want  of  wUl 
in  congress,  unfortunate  insolvents  are  left  to  hopeless  bondage.  There 
are  probably  one  or  two  hundred  thousand  debtors,  honest,  sober  and  in- 
dustrious, who  drag  out  lives  useless  to  themselves,  useless  to  their  fami- 
lies, and  useless  to  their  country,  for  no  reason  but  that  they  cannot  be 
legally  discharged  from  debts  in  which  misfortunes  have  involved  them, 
and  wliich  there  is  no  possibility  of  their  ever  pajdng.  .  .  .  Their  power 
of  earning  is,  in  truth,  taken  away,  their  faculty  of  useful  employment  ia 
paralyzed,  and  hope  itself  extinguished.''    Ibid.,  p.  20. 


THE   BA2TKBUPT   BILL.  449 

number  of  other  bills  on  the  same  subject  was  introduced, 
:iud  for  some  time  this  question  occupied  a  very  prominent 
place,  botli  in  congress  and  out  of  it.  But  the  longer  it  was 
discussed,  the  more  improbable  it  seemed  that  it  would  be 
settled  in  the  manner  desired  by  Webster.  Narrow-hearted 
individual  interest  and  constitutional  doctrinarianism  com- 
bined in  bitter  opposition.  Calhoun  admitted  that  he  was 
iit  first  in  favor  of  the  contemplated  measure,^  but  that  closer 
consideration  had  convinced  him  of  its  unconstitutionality, 
I^ecause,  in  the  constitutional  clause  in  question,  the  word 
"  bankrupt "  should  not  be  understood  in  the  broader  sense 
of  every  day  language,  but  in  the  narrower  technical  sense. 
This  conclusion  he  naturally  found  in  the  general  state's- 
rights  principle,  which  in  every  case  of  doubtful  interpreta- 
tion required  the  one  least  favorable  to  the  federal  power  to  be 
preferred.^  Others,  like  Benton,  adopted  the  view  that  the 
word  "  bankrupt "  did  not  mean  simple  insolvency,  and  trem- 
bled with  indignation  at  the  proposition  to  wipe  out  the  entire 
debt,  under  any  circn instances  whatever,  without  the  free 
consent  of  the  creditors,  if  the  debtor  surrendered  all  his 
property  to  them."  The  capitalists  of  the  eastern  states  did 
not  want  to  allow  their  western  debtors  to  be  taken  out  of 
their  hands,  while  the  hard-pressed  western  banks  violently 
opposed  the  law  which  would  have  been  very  acceptable  to 
the  firmer  and  safer  banks  of  the  eastern  states.* 

'  Calh.'s  Works,  III,  p.  506. 
« Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  510. 

*  "  Our  bill  .  .  .  committed  the  most  daring  legislative  outrage  upon 
the  rights  of  property  which  the  world  ever  beheld."  Thirty  Years'  View, 
II,  p.  240. 

*  Of  the  five  hundred  and  thirty-eight  banks  in  the  New  England  states 
and  New  York,  only  seven  had  suspended  payments  after  the  banks  of 
Rhode  Island  had  resumed  them  again.  Of  the  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
one  western  and  southern  banks,  on  the  other  hand,  three  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  had  either  entirely  or  in  part  suspended  payment  Calh-'s 
Works,  III,  p.  522. 

29 


450  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Against  this  opposition,  brought  together  by  so  many  dif- 
ferent motives,  a  coalition  of  the  friends  of  the  bankrupt  bill 
and  the  distribution  bill,  under  the  leadership  of  Senator 
Walker,  of  Mississippi,  was  formed.  In  the  senate,  there 
was  a  majority  in  favor  of  the  bankrupt  bill,  but  not  of  the 
distribution  bill,  and  in  the  house  the  very  reverse  was  the 
case.  Mississippi  had  the  greatest  interest  in  the  former, 
and  its  opposition  to  the  latter  was  caused,  not  by  its  interest, 
but  by  the  constitutional  doctrines  of  the  party.  Walker 
was,  therefore,  ready  to  support  the  distribution  bill,  pro- 
vided he  got  the  bankrupt  bill  in  consideration  of  his  sup- 
port, and  the  proposition  met  with  sufficient  favor  in  both 
houses  of  congress  to  close  the  trade.^ 

Thus,  then,  the  whigs  had  happily  carried  all  their  great 
measures,  in  the  extraordinary  session.  Nothing  had  col- 
lapsed but  the  crowning  dome  of  the  whole  structure  —  the 
bank  bill.  T^o  this  circumstance  they  ascribed  the  fact  that 
the  economic  condition  of  the  country,  and  especially  its 
financial  condition,  had  not  become  better,  but  worse,  when 
congress  met  again  at  the  close  of  the  year.  All  the  business 
life  of  the  country  was  prostrated.^  It  frequently  happened 
that  the  treasury  could  not  pay  the  federal  officers,  nor  even 
the  army  and  navy.^  The  federal  debt  had  increased  from 
the  Ist  of  January,  1841,  to  the  1st  of  January,  1842,  from 


'For  the  details,  see  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  231-233. 

' "  AU  the  great  interests  of  the  country  are  now  in  an  extremely  de- 
pressed condition  —  every  branch  of  industry  is  paralyzed. ' '  Report  of  the 
House  Committee  on  Manufactures,  March  31, 1842.    Niles,  LXII,  p.  107. 

* "  Since  that  i)eriod  [the  extraordinary  session],  the  pay  of  the  army,  the 
navy  and  the  civil  list,  have  been  frequently  suspended,  from  the  utter 
destitution  of  the  treasury.  .  .  .  Treasury  notes  of  government  have 
depreciated,  and  been  returned  by  the  needy  public  creditor  under  protest. 
Every  device  to  sustain  the  sinking  credit  of  the  government,  short  of  a  di- 
rect tax,  has  failed,  and  this  at  a  period  when  our  foreign  relations  were 
eminently  precarious."    Gilmer's  Majority  Report.    Ibid.,  p.  410. 


FINANCIAL   DISTRESS.  451 

$6,737,398  to  $15,028,486.^  The  credit  of  the  Union  was 
shaken  to  such  an  extent  that  of  the  small  loan  of  twelve  mill- 
ions authorized  by  the  law  of  the  21st  of  July,  1841,  not  quite 
one-half  could  be  effected  up  to  the  close  of  the  year.''  But 
the  administration  did  not  feel  called  upon  even  to  endeavor 
to  effect  a  reduction  of  expenses.'  It  estimated  the  available 
receipts  for  the  year  1842  at  $18,572,440,  and  the  expenses  at 
$32,791,010,  so  that  a  deficit  of  $14,218,570  had  to  be  pro- 
vided for.*  But  in  the  near  future,  no  increase,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  a  considerable  decrease  of  the  revenues  was  ex- 
pected, since,  according  to  the  compromise  law  of  the  2d  of 
March,  1833,  the  last  reduction  of  duties  had  to  be  effected, 
and  the  "  horizontal  tariff  "  of  twenty  per  cent  to  come  into 
force. 

It  was,  therefore,  evidently  high  time  to  put  a  stop  to  this 
sinking  deeper  and  deeper  in  the  slough.  All  were  agreed 
that  recourse  should  not  be  had  to  a  direct  tax.  All  other 
means  had  failed,  or  were  only  palliatives,  by  means  of  which 
the  country  had  been  enabled  to  live  along  from  day  to  day, 
dragging  out  a  miserable  existence.  There  seemed,  therefore, 
to  be  only  one  means  which  promised  redemption  —  the 
throwing  overboard  of  the  compromise  law  of  March  2, 1833. 
If  the  duties  were  not  lowered,  but  increased,  it  was  thought 
that  not  only  the  necessary  income  might  be  provided  for 
the  administration,  but  that  new  life  might  be  infused  into 
the  stagnant  industries  of  the  country. 

Tyler  had,  in  his  first  message  of  the  1st  of  June,  1841, 
contested  the  assertion  that  the  circumstances  would  warrant 

'  Sumner,  History  of  American  Currency,  p.  165. 
'Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Trea.<!ury  of  the  20th  of  December,  1841. 
Niles,  LXI,  p.  275. 

*  In  the  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  of  May  9, 1842,  we  read : 
"  The  supposition  of  diminished  expenses  has  not  been  entertained."  Ibid., 
LXIT,  p.  166. 

*  Report  of  December  20,  1841.    Ibid.,  LXI,  p.  275. 


452  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

a  disturbance  of  the  compromise  act.*  He  now  took  a  step 
towards  meeting  the  wishes  of  the  whigs.  The  message  of  the 
7th  of  December,  1841,  declared,  in  contradiction  to  the  uni- 
form ad  valorem  duties  of  the  compromise  act,  in  favor  of 
"discriminating  duties,"  but  at  the  same  time  expressed  the 
hope  that  it  would  not  become  necessary  to  exceed  the  limit 
of  twenty  per  cent,  fixed  by  that  law.^  But  this  was  all  talk. 
The  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  dated  December 
20,  made  use,  in  the  discussion  of  this  question,  of  very  cau- 
tious and  moderate  language,  but  in  the  end  amounted  only 
to  this,  that  the  compromise  act  was  a  failure.' 

Congress  was  by  no  means  in  a  hurry  to  settle  this  ques- 
tion, universally  as  its  importance  and  urgency  were  recog. 
nized.  A  message  of  the  president  of  the  25th  of  March, 
1842,  counselled  it  to  hasten,  and  again 'laid  stress  on  the 
necessity  of  taking  vigorous  measures  to  put  an  end  to  the 
financial  wretchedness  of  the  country.  Without  any  modify- 
ing clauses,  Tyler  now  declared  that  to  be  possible  only  in 
case  the  compromise  act  were  in  part  abandoned.*    Not- 

■ "  The  act  of  the  2d  of  March,  1833,  commonly  called  the  compromise 
act,  should  not  be  altered,  except  under  urgent  necessities,  which  are  not 
believed  at  this  time  to  exist."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1343. 

»Ibid.,  p.  1367. 

' "  The  great  principle  of  that  act  was  moderation  and  conciliation,  and 
this  should  never  be  lost  sight  of.  But  the  measures  proper  and  necessary 
to  carry  out  that  principle  may  be  changed,  if  the  altered  circumstances  of 
the  country  call  for  such  change,  without  any  departure  from  the  principle 
itself."  He  unconditionally  maintains  that  duties  should  be  imposed  only 
to  obtain  a  revenue,  and  admits  that  "in  many  cases  "  twenty  per  cent, 
would  be  sufficient  for  that  purpose,  but  concludes:  "  But  he  the  [under- 
signed] still  supposes  that  there  are  several  descriptions  of  imported  man- 
ufactures and  produce  which  would  well  bear  a  higher  duty  than  twenty 
per  cent,  upon  the  home  value,  and  thus  yield  a  greater  revenue  to  the 
government,  while,  in  regard  to  some  of  them,  it  -will  be  found  that,  with- 
out such  increased  duty,  the  labor  of  large  classes,  engaged  in  producing 
similar  articles,  will  be  greatly  depressed  if  not  entirely  supplanted." 
Niles,  LXI,  p.  276. 

♦Statesm.'s  Man  ,  II,  p.  1380. 


TUE   TARIFF   QUESTION.  453 

withstanding  this,  two  more  months  elapsed  before  the  house 
began  to  take  action  on  the  tariff  question.  That  was,  in- 
deed, a  subject  the  previous  consultation  on  which  in  the 
committee  required,  imder  all  circumstances,  a  great  deal 
of  time,  and  the  condition  of  things  at  the  moment  mate- 
rially increased  the  difficulties  of  the  task.  It  was,  however, 
verj  surprising  that  the  committee  on  ways  and  means  did 
not  introduce  a  bill  until  the  3d  of  June.  The  committee 
itself  considered  it  impossible  that  it  could  become  a  law 
until  the  end  of  the  month,  and  therefore,  on  the  7th  of  June, 
introduced  a  "  provisional  tariff  bill."  This  bill,  therefore, 
had  to  pass  both  houses  of  congress  and  receive  the  sanction 
of  the  president  in  twenty-three  days,  if  the  day  fixed  by 
the  compromise  act  were  not  to  find  the  country  entirely  un- 
prepared to  carry  out  the  far-reaching  changes  in  relation  to 
the  imposition  and  levying  of  taxes.^  This  looked  very  much 
as  if  the  majority  wished  to  put  thumb-screws  on  the  pres- 
ident. And  this  must  have  seemed  all  the  more  probable 
because  the  opinion  was  very  prevalent,  that,  according  to 
the  provisions  of  the  compromise  act  of  June  30,  no  duties 
whatever  could  be  levied  any  longer  unless  authorized  by  a 
new  law,*  and  because  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  had  com- 
mitted himself  to  this  view.'  But  congress  had  reason 
to  put  the  president  under  high  pressure,  because  it  had 
adopted  in  its  provisional  tariff  bill  a  provision  which  Tyler 

'  The  compromise  act  introduced  the  valuation  of  goods  at  the  port  of 
entry,  abolished  all  credit,  and  required  payment  of  duties  "in  ready 
money." 

*  Adams's  Report  of  the  16Ui  August,  1812.  Niles,  LXII,  p.  396.  The 
clause  of  the  compromise  act  on  which  this  view  was  based,  was  as  fol- 
lows: "  And  from  and  after  the  day  last  aforesaid,  the  duties  required  to 
be  paid  by  law  on  goods,  wares  and  merchandise,  shall  be  assessed  upon 
the  value  thereof,  at  the  port  where  the  same  shall  ba  entered,  under  such 
r»gnlations  as  may  be  provided  by  law." 

*  "  .  .  .  if  congress  shall  not  at  this  session  prescribe  regulations 
for  asseasing  duties  upon  a  valuation  to  be  made  at  the  port  of  entry,  oi 


154  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

had  repeatedly  and  expressly  declared  in  his  official  utter- 
ances to  be  unacceptable. 

According  to  the  law  of  the  4:th  of  September,  1841,  the 
distribution  of  the  net  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public 
lands  was  to  be  suspended  as  soon  as  the  duties  were  raised 
above  the  maximum  fixed  by  the  compromise  act,  and  the 
suspension  was  to  continue  until  the  reason  for  it  was  done 
away  with/  This  clause  was  adopted  in  the  bill  because  it 
was  known  that,  without  it,  it  would  neither  pass  the  senate 
nor  receive  the  approval  of  the  president.  Although  Tyler 
had  held  emphatically  fast  to  this  standpoint,^  in  the  mes- 
sages of  the  Ttli  of  December,  1841,  and  of  March  25,  1842, 
congress  now  demanded  that  he  should  surrender  it,  and 
esteemed  it  a  great  merit  that  it  had  spun  out  the  cobwebs 
of  sophistry  to  cover  the  retreat.  The  bill  on  the  provis- 
ional tariif  exceeded  the  maximum  of  the  compromise  tariff,^ 
and  suspended  the  distribution  for  the  month  of  July;  but 
it  was  to  be  resumed  on  the  1st  of  August,  although  the  re- 
duction of  duties  to  that  maximum  was  not  promised  for  the 
same  term,*  and  was  not  at  all  contemplated  by  the  permanent 
tariff. 

Not  till  the  2Tth  of  June,  three  days  before  the  going  into 
force  of  the  last  provisions  of  the  compromise  act,  did  the  bill 
pass  the  house.  On  the  29th  of  June,  Tyler  returned  it  with 
his  veto.®  Before  it  was  sent  back,  he  had  had  an  opinion 
given  by  the  attorney  general,  whether,  without  a  new  law, 

pass  some  law  modifying  the  act  of  1833,  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether 
any  ad  valorem  duties  can  be  collected  after  the  30th  of  June.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  law  seems  explicit."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  275. 

» Stat,  at  L..  V,  p.  454,  sec.  VI. 

« Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1367,  1380. 

*  It  did  not  allow  the  last  reductions  of  the  compromise  act  to  come  mto 
force,  but  ordered  the  continuance  of  the  existing  tariff  laws  for  a  month. 

«Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  443. 

»Statesm.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1388-1391. 


ttleb's  veto.  '  455 

the  duties  might  be  levied  according  to  the  provisions  of  the 
compromise  a3t,  and  Legare  had  given  an  answer  in  the 
affirmative.^ 

There  was  something  artificial  in  the  overflowing  passion 
with  which  the  house  received  the  veto  message,  since  no 
one  could  contest  the  assertion  made  by  Proffit,  that  everj 
member  of  the  house  bad  certainly  expected  the  veto. 
Whether  Tyler  should  not  have  yielded  is  a  question  which 
might  have  divided  people;  but  it  was  ridiculous,  after  the 
experience  had,  to  appear  astonished  that  he  went  into  the 
fight  after  congress  had,  with  full  consciousness,  thrown 
down  the  gauntlet  to  him.  It  was  demonstrably  not  only 
the  intention  of  congress  to  carry  this  measure  which  it  con- 
sidered expedient,  but  it  carried  on  a  battle  based  on  prin- 

'  His  reasoning  on  the  clause  above  mentioned  of  the  compromise  act 
seems  to  me  entirely  valid:  "  I  do  not  think  that  in  a  fair  legal  constrac- 
tion  this  amounts  to  anything  more  than  what  so  frequently  happens  in 
all  statute  law  —  an  expression  of  what  would  be  suppUed  by  the  common 
law,  were  it  not  expressed  —  expressio  eorum  quce  tacUe  ittsunt,  and  which, 
therefore,  according  to  a  maxim  of  the  law,  nihil  operatur.  If  the  legis- 
lature retain  its  usual  powers,  it  may,  of  course,  if  it  see  fit,  prescribe  new 
regulations  in  any  branch  of  the  service.  I  hold,  therefore,  that '  such  regu- 
lations as  may  be  prescribed  by  law,'  is  equivalent  to  such  regulations  aa 
may  be  from  time  to  time  prescribed;  in  other  words,  to  any  regulations 
prescribed  by  law."  He  comes  to  the  conclusion :  "  On  the  whole,  I  think 
the  act  bindmg  on  all,  without  any  statutory  regulations  connected  with  it, 
and  susceptible  of  complete  execution  under  the  existing  state  of  the  law.*' 
Opin.  of  the  Att.  Gen.,  IV,  pp.  60, 63. 

Adams  says,  in  the  report  quoted  above :  "Not  only  was  this  most  con- 
ciliatory measure  contemptuously  rejected,  but,  in  total  disregard  of  the 
avowed  opinions  of  his  own  secretary  of  the  treasury,  concurring  with 
those,  nearly  unanimous,  of  all  the  most  eminent  lawyers  of  the  land,  in 
sohtary  reliance  upon  the  hesitating  opinion  of  the  attorney  general,  he 
has  undertaken  not  only  to  levy  taxes  to  the  amount  of  miUions  upon  the 
people,  but  to  prescribe  regulations  for  its  collection,  and  for  ascertaining 
the  value  of  imported  merchandise,  which  the  law  had,  in  express  terms, 
reserved  for  the  legislative  action  of  congress."  I  do  not  know  what  jus- 
tified Adams  to  speak  of  Legare 's  "  hesitating  opinion,"  but  that  the  as- 


456  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

ciple:  it  wanted  to  bend  the  executive  under  the  will  of  the 
majoritj  of  the  legislature.  When  Proffit  asked  whether 
any  one  in  the  house  doubted  what  would  be  the  fate  of  the 
bill  on  the  definitive  tariff,  in  case  the  distribution  clause 
was  appended  to  it,  he  was  met  with  the  exclamation,  "  "We'll 
give  it  him."  ^  Bend  or  break,  was,  therefore,  the  watchword 
of  congress.  And  it  was  not  its  watchword  from  yesterday 
only,  nor  did  the  more  decided  whigs  want  to  express  them- 
selves satisfied  with  a  victory  in  this  particular  case  or  only 
with  their  permanent  triumph  with  this  particular  president. 
The  rhetorical  effusions  against  the  veto  for  the  most  part 
failed  entirely  to  take  notice  of  the  ground  on  which  Tyler 
had  based  it.  They  were  very  general  unbridled  declama- 
tions against  the  veto  power.  That  was  the  point  against 
which,  even  long  before  the  outbreak  of  this  last  controversy, 
the  storming  columns  had  been  directed. 

In  his  speech  of  August  19,  1841,  Clay  had  already  given 
it  clearly  to  be  understood  that  a  really  satisfactory  decision 
of  the  conflict  was  to  be  found  there,  and  there  only.^  He  then, 
in  a  letter  of  the  14th  of  September,  had  made  the  definite 
proposition  to  so  change  the  constitution  that  a  majority 
vote  of  congress  might  suffice  to  overrule  the  president's 
veto.'     And  he  had,  on  the  29th  of  December,  introduced 

gertion  that  the  most  emment  jurists  of  the  country  were  almost  unanimously 
of  the  opposite  opinion,  was  a  great  exagpreration,  the  facts  proved  in  a 
striking  manner.  A  Baltimore  firm  sued  the  collector  for  reimbursement 
of  the  duties  levied  on  the  commodities  imported  by  it.  The  case  was  car- 
ried to  the  supreme  court,  and  the  latter  decided  in  favor  of  the  adminis- 
tration, basing  its  opinion  essentially  on  the  grounds  adduced  by  Legare. 
Aldrige  vs.  Williams,  Howard's  Rep.,  HI,  pp.  1-32;  Curtia,  XV,  pp. 
2C8-2?0. 

'Deb.  of  Congr..  XIV,  p.  449. 

•Clay's  Sp.,  II,  p.  511. 

•  "  Let  us,  by  a  suita,ble  amendment  to  that  instrument,  declare  that  the 
veto  —  that  parent  and  fruitful  source  of  aU  our  ills  —  shall  itself  be  over- 
ruled by  majorities  in  the  two  houses  of  congress.    They  would  persuade 


THE   VETO    POWER.  457 

into  tlie  senate  a  formal  motion  to  this  effect,  adding  to  it 
the  further  proposition  that  henceforth  the  secretary  of 
finance  and  the  treasurer  of  the  United  States  should  be  ap- 
pointed yearly  by  congress,  and  that  they  should  not  be  sub- 
ject to  removal  by  the  president.^ 

The  proposal  of  a  constitutional  amendment  requires,  ac- 
cording to  the  constitution,  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  both 
houses  of  congress.  That  such  a  majority  could  not  be  had, 
in  either  of  the  two  houses,  there  was  no  doubt.  Hence, 
Clay's  resolutions  were  not  so  much  intended  for  congress  as 
for  the  people.  For  this  general  purpose  of  agitation,  it 
was,  therefore,  sufficient  that  the  house  was  satisfied  with 
some  declamation  in  order  to  bring  the  tariff  question  to  a 
decision  without  any  unnecessary  delay.  On  the  16th  of 
July,  the  bill  was  passed  by  the  house  by  a  vote  of  one  hun- 
dred and  sixteen  against  one  hundred  and  twelve;^  and  in 
the  senate  it  received,  on  the  5tli  of  August,  twenty-five 
votes  against  twenty-tiiree.'  The  distribution  clause  was  re- 
tained after  a  hard  struggle. 

It  was  too  well  known  what  illusions  Tyler  indulged  in 
relation  to  the  views  of  the  people,*  to  permit  it  to  be  believed 
that  his  courage  would  forsake  him  at  the  last  moment.  The 
bill  came  back  to  the  house  with  the  veto  on  the  9th  of  Au- 
gust.'   The  storm  now  began  to  rage  in  earnest.    The  house 

us  that  it  is  harmless,  because  its  office  is  preventive  or  conservative!  As 
if  a  nation  might  not  be  as  much  injured  by  the  arrest  of  the  enactment  of 
good  laws  as  by  thf*  promulgation  of  bad  ones!  "    Niles,  LXI,  p.  67. 

'  See  the  terms  of  his  resolutions  in  Niles,  LXI,  p.  299. 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  pp.  456,  457. 

» Ibid.,  p.  478. 

*  "  The  toadies  flatter  him  [Tyler]  with  the  belief  that  whilst  the  poli- 
ticians are  deadly  hostile  to  him,  from  jealousy  of  his  rismg  fortunes,  the 
people  are  everywhere  lising  en  masse  and  coming  to  his  rescue."  J.  Bu- 
chanan to  R.  P.  Letcher,  Wash.,  April  17,  1842;  Ck)leman,  Life  of  Crit- 
tenden, I,  p.  176. 

»State8m.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1392-1393. 


4:58  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

referred  tlie  message  to  a  committee,  and  placed  Adams  at 
its  head.  What  this  committee  did,  came  with  all  the  enor- 
mous weight  of  the  grej-haired  statesman.  And  with  unre- 
lenting severity,  the  ex-president  proceeded  to  judgment  with 
Tjler,  who  looked  upon  himself  as  greater  than  a  laboring 
mountain.^  When  Botts,  on  the  10th  of  July,  had  expressed 
the  intention  to  introduce  a  motion  for  impeachment,^  his 
action  was  universally  looked  upon  as  a  want  of  moderation, 
as  unwise  as  it  was  ridiculous.  The  committee  now  declared 
that  it  would  make  such  a  motion  were  it  not  that  it  was 
foreseen  it  would  remain  without  result.'  For  this  reason, 
the  committee  limited  itself  to  seeking  a  remedy  for  the 
future,  but  it  even  now  demanded  that  it  should  be  a  radical 
one.  The  report  closed  with  a  proposition  to  have  a  consti- 
tutional amendment  passed,  providing  that  a  simple  majority 
of  all  the  members  of  both  houses  of  congress  should  suffice 
to  pass  a  law  over  the  veto  of  the  president.  This  proposi- 
tion received  ninety-eight  votes  against  ninety.* 

The  report  went  through  Tyler's  whole  table  of  sins  from 
the  beginning, and  found  sufficient  reason  to  indict  him,  in 
the  fact  that,  as  president,  he  so  frequently  had  crippled  the 
legislative  action  of  congress,  in  reference  to  the  most  im- 

'  Crittenden  writes  to  Letcher  on  the  1st  of  May,  1842:  "  Tyler  has  pro- 
duced the  strangest  sort  of  distraction  and  inaction  that  was  ever  seen.  He 
sits  in  the  midst  of  it,  mighty  busy  and  bustling  —  the  Tom  Thumb  of  the 
scene — thinking  himself  the  admiration  of  the  world  and  the  favorite 
child  of  Providence.  Take  it  altogether,  it  is  the  most  severe  burlesque  on 
all  human  ambition  and  government  that  was  ever  witnessed."  Coleman, 
Life  of  Crittenden,  I,  p.  178. 

^  Niles,  LXII,  p.  314. 

"'The  majority  of  the  committee  believe  that  the  case  has  occurred  in 
the  annals  of  our  Union,  contemplated  by  the  founders  of  the  constitution 
by  the  grant  to  the  house  of  representatives  of  the  power  to  impeach  the 
president  of  the  United  States;  but  they  are  aware  that  a  resort  to  that 
expedient  might,  in  the  present  condition  of  public  aflFairs,  prove  abortive.'' 
Ibid.,  p.  397. 

*  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  505. 


THE   VETO   POWEE.  459 

portant  interests  by  his  veto.*  But  there  was  a  special  rea- 
son why  the  committee  and  the  majority  of  the  house  were 
of  opinion  that  they  should,  precisely  at  this  moment,  look 
upon  the  measure  of  his  guilt  as  full.  The  last  veto  related 
to  a  sphere  which,  according  to  the  traditional  views  of  Ano-lo- 
Saxon  political  life,  was  the  real  domain  of  the  popular  house 
of  the  legislative  body.  The  object  of  the  tariff  bill  was  to 
provide  the  government  with  a  revenue,  and  Ai-cher,  of  Yir- 
ginia,  said  in  the  senate,  that  in  England  not  even  the  Tudors 
had  dared  to  put  their  veto  on  such  a  bill.'^  It  was  this  defi- 
nite character  of  the  bill  which  caused  Stuart,  of  Virginia,  to 
declare  in  the  house  that  the  honor  of  the  house  was  at  stake, 
and  that  if  it  yielded,  congress  would  be  entirely  purposeless.^ 
And  it  could  not  be  denied  that  the  constitution,  on  this 

' "  They  [the  house]  pejceive  that  the  legislative  power  of  the  Union  has 
been  for  the  last  fifteen  months,  with  regard  to  the  action  of  congress  upon 
measures  of  vital  importance,  in  a  state  of  suspended  animation,  strangled 
by  the  five  times  repeated  stricture  of  the  executive  cord.  They  observe 
that,  under  these  unexampled  obstructions  to  the  exercise  of  their  high  and 
legitimate  duties,  they  have  hitherto  preserved  the  most  rcspoctful  forbear- 
ance to%vards  the  executive  chief;  that  while  he  has,  time  alter  time,  an- 
nulled, by  the  mere  act  of  his  wiU,  their  commission  from  the  people  to 
enact  laws  for  the  common  welfare,  they  have  forborne  even  the  expression 
of  their  resentment  for  these  multipUed  insults  and  injuries  —  they  believed 
they  had  a  high  destiny  to  fulfill,  by  administering  to  the  people  in  the 
form  of  law,  remedies  for  the  sufferings  which  they  had  too  long  endured. 
The  will  of  one  man  has  frusti-ated  all  their  labors  and  prostrated  all  their 
powers."  Here  follows  directly  the  place  already  cited  concerning  im- 
peachment. 

»  "  Never,  in  the  mother  country,  had  an  instance  been  known  of  a  bill 
of  supply  being  vetoed  — not  even  by  the  Tudors.  .  ,  .  If  there  were 
men  of  any  party  ready  to  succumb  to  such  dictation,  and  to  go  home  made 
by  their  own  act  slaves,  he  would  not  be  found  among  such  men.  If  it 
was  necessary,  he  would  not  only  say  perish  commerce,  perish  credit,  but 
let  the  government  fall  to  pieces,  and  tho  Union  be  dissolved,  sooner  than 
lie  should  sanction,  by  his  act,  any  measure  which  would  abrogate  the  in- 
dependence of  the  people's  representatives."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  470. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  449. 


460   JACKSOit's  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

question,  had  strictly  followed  the  traditions  of  the  mother 
country.  It  had  expressly  reserved  the  exclusive  taking  of 
the  initiative  in  the  matter  of  "  all  bills  for  raising  revenue  " 
to  the  house.^  True,  the  view  had  been  frequently  expressed, 
that  the  people  had  allowed  themselves  to  be  misled  by  false 
analogies,  into  the  baseless  fear  which  had  taken  the  house 
of  lords  as  its  model  in  measuring  out  the  rights  of  the  senate 
in  this  respect.  But  there  was  only  one  opinion  among  the 
people —  that  the  executive  would  greatly  violate  the  spirit  of 
the  constitution,  if,  to  carry  out  his  views  on  questions  of  ex- 
pedienc}'-,  he  should,  in  such  questions,  oppose  his  veto  to 
the  discretion  of  congress.  But  had  Tyler  really  done  this? 
In  the  first  place,  the  whigs  were  not  now  justified  in  act- 
ing as  if  the  question  of  distribution  were  to  be  put  on 
a  level  with  any  question  of  pure  expediency  of  sub- 
ordinate importance.  It  was  most  intimately  connected 
with  the  compromise  act,  and  that  the  latter  bore  a  special 
character  was  acknowledged  even  by  the  supreme  court 
of  the  United  States.^  Much  might  be  alleged  in  favor 
of  what  Clay  said,  that  it  was  only  by  ignoble  trickery 
and  a  gross  violation  of  good  faith  that  the  principle  of 
the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  the  public 
lands  was  kept  from  becoming  a  part  of  the  compromise  of 
1833;  but  that  did  not  alter  the  fact  that  it  had  not  become 
so.  It  was  indeed  now  universally  acknowledged  that  the 
setting  aside  of  the  compromise  act  could  be  justified  only 
by  extreme  necessity.  And  that  a  greater  deviation  from  it 
would  be  called  for  in  case  the  distribution  were  allowed  to 
proceed  than  if  it  were  suspended,  was  self-evident.  Hence 
it  was  that  the  senate  and  the  president  had  made  the  pas- 
sage of  the  law  of  September  4,  1841,  dependent  on  that 
clause.     The  senate  had  been,  indeed,  prepared  to  permit 

'Art.  I,  sec.  7,  par.  1. 

*  In  the  decision  already  cited  in  Aldridge  v.  Williams. 


TYLEE    AND  THE   CONSTITUTION.  461 

that  condition  to  be  dropped.  But  this,  of  itself,  did  not 
put  the  president  under  any  obligations  to  do  the  same 
tiling.  And  when  he  weighed  the  question  with  himself 
wliether  he  was  morally,  and  according  to  the  spirit  of  the 
constitution,  warranted,  in  this  important  question,  in  main- 
taining his  position,  he  was  certainly  entitled  to  take  into 
account,  as  a  material  element,  the  circumstance  that  the 
majority  for  the  bill  had  amounted  in  the  house  to  only  four, 
and  in  the  senate  to  only  two  votes.  But,  above  all  things, 
he  could  unconditionally  repel  the  reproach  that  he  had,  in 
any  way,  infringed  the  prerogative  of  the  house  or  of  congress 
in  respect  to  the  raising  of  revenue.  The  veto  was  occasioned 
by  the  distribution  clause,  and  the  distribution  clause  con- 
tained nothing  on  the  raising  of  revenue,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
provided  that  the  government  of  the  Union  should,  for  the 
1  >enefit  of  the  states,  renounce  certain  revenue.  To  compel  the 
president  to  yield  in  the  distribution  question  by  means  of 
the  tariff  question,  congress  had  coupled  the  two  questions 
together  in  one  bill,  and  it  had  done  so  at  the  risk  of  seeing 
the  distribution  question  draw  the  tariff  after  it,  and  not  the 
tariff  the  question  of  distribution.  There  was  nothing  to 
compel  Tyler,  either  legally  or  morally,  to  surrender  his 
judgment  on  the  question  of  distribution,  and  congress, 
therefore,  had  no  reason  to  complain  if  the  president,  on  his 
«ide,  made  use  of  the  means  legally  belonging  to  him  to 
compel  it  to  separate  the  two  questions.  Tyler  had  unques- 
tionably made  such  a  use  of  the  veto  power  as  the  first  six 
presidents  of  the  republic  would  never  have  thought  of  mak- 
ing. But  the  majorities  opposed  to  liim  were  not  so  great, 
nor  was  the  nature  of  the  last  question  at  issue  such  that 
they  could,  from  any  point  of  view  whatever,  seem  to  make 
the  attempt  to  substitute  the  radical  for  the  moderate  de- 
mocracy, in  this  cardinal  question,  justifiable.  And,  indeed, 
scarcely  any  excuse  for  the  attempt  can  be  found  when  we 


462  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

take  the  manner  in  which  congress,  from  the  first,  carried  on 
the  fight,  into  consideration.  If,  notwithstanding  this,  we 
see  a  man  like  Adams  playing  a  leading  part  in  the  matter, 
the  only  possible  explanation  of  the  fact  is  that  passion,  to  a 
great  extent,  prevailed  over  calm  judgment.  Tyler's  sins 
against  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  were  seen  in  so  bad  a 
light,  because  he  had  committed  the  deadly  offense  against 
the  party  of  breaking  its  power  before  it  had  begun  to  carry 
its  programme  into  execution.  Such  an  offense" must  al- 
ways greatly  embitter  any  party  honestly  convinced  of  the 
correctness  of  its  views,  and  the  consciousness  of  not  being 
without  blame  for  it  itself,  must  always  intensify  this  ani- 
mosity, and  can  never  weaken  it.  And  the  animosity  here 
must  have  been  especially  great,  because  the  whigs  had  never 
before  had  the  possibility  of  realizing  and  practically  testing 
their  entire  programme,  and  because  the  circumstances  had 
offered  a  peculiarly  favorable  opportunity  by  the  brilliant 
contrast  of  their  success,  to  deal  a  fatal  blow  at  their 
opponents. 

Satisfaction  was  vouchsafed  to  the  house,  but  it  had  no 
practical  value.  Tyler  sent  it  a  protest  against  the  Adams 
report.'  The  document  was  drawn  up  after  the  model  of 
Jackson's  celebrated  protest  against  the  resolutions  of  the 
senate.  But  unfortunately  for  Tyler  he  had  then  voted,  as 
senator,  for  the  resolutions  with  which  the  senate  had  re- 
jected the  protest.  The  house  now  answered  his  protest  by 
sending  him  a  verbatim  copy  of  those  resolutions.'^ 

Tyler  could  bear  this  thrust  with  pretty  good  grace,  since 
he  had  won  the  victory  in  the  main  question.  When  Fillmore 
had  moved,  on  the  18th  of  August,  the  adoption  of  the  former 
tariff  bill  without  the  distribution  clause,  the  motion  had 
been  rejected  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  fourteen  against 

'  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1405-1408. 
•Deb.  of  Conge.,  XIV,  pp.  528,  529. 


THE   BILL    PASSED.  463 

eighty-six.*  But  by  degrees,  minds  began  to  grow  calm. 
Whether  the  whigs  would  be  able,  in  the  next  congress,  to 
get  such  a  tariff  as  they  desired,  was,  to  say  the  least,  not 
sure,  and  yet  to  most  such  a  tariff  was  more  important  than 
the  wrangle  with  the  president.  There  were  some  who  did 
not  want  to  bear  the  responsibility  for  the  continuance  of 
the  condition  of  things  at  the  moment,  which  not  only 
afforded  an  entirely  insufficient  income,  but  which  left  it 
doubtful  whether  a  judicial  decision  would  not  compel  the 
payment  back  of  all  duties  collected  after  the  30th  of  June. 
And,  at  last,  so  much  assistance  was  afforded  by  the  demo- 
crats, that  the  bitter  resolution  could  be  carried.  On  the 
22d  of  August,  the  engrossing  of  the  bill  was  ordered  by 
one  hundred  and  three  against  one  hundred  and  two  votes; 
by  a  subsequent  vote  the  majority  grew  to  one  hundred  and 
five,  and  finally,  the  bill  was  adopted  by  one  hundred  and  five 
votes  against  one  hundred  and  three.^  After  a  struggle 
just  as  severe,  it  was  passed  by  the  senate  on  the  27th  of 
August,  by  twenty-four  votes  against  twenty-three,  and  on 
the  30th  of  August  it  was  signed  by  the  president.' 

The  great  question  of  the  session  of  1841-42  was  settled, 
but  the  vote  showed  a  significant  confusion  of  parties.  A  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  democratic  party  had  deserted  their 
flag  in  this  prominent  "  party  question."  And  of  the  whigs, 
a  powerful  minority  had  turned  their  backs  on  this  child  of 
pain  *  rather  than  yield  in  the  quarrel  with  the  president, 
although  they  did  not  conceal  from  themselves  how  ruinous 
it  was  to  them. 

'  Deb.  of  Cong.,  XFV,  p.  506. 

» Ibid.,  pp.  510,  511. 

« Stat,  at  L.,  V,  pp.  548-^7. 

*  "  It  is  not  true  that  a  majority,  composed  of  whigs,  could  be  found,  in 
either  house,  in  favor  of  the  tariff  bill.  More  than  thirty  whigs,  many  of 
them  gentlemen  of  lead  and  influence,  voted  against  the  law,  from  begin- 
ning to  end,  on  all  questions,  direct  and  indirect;  and  it  ia  not  pleasant  to 


404  Jackson's  administration  — ^annexation  of  texas. 

Their  fears  were  confirmed.  The  party  fared  so  badly 
in  the  fall  elections  that  "Webster  doubted  whether  its  sun- 
dered ranks  would  ever  be  reunited  again.^  And  the  weaker 
the  party  became,  the  more  time  and  strength  did  it  devote 
to  its  internal  wrangles.  So  long  as  the  negotiations  with 
England  continued,  Webster's  remaining  in  the  cabinet  was 
reluctantly  connived  at.  But  as  soon  as  the  Ashburton  treaty 
(August  9,  1842)  was  closed,  petitions  poured  in  from  all 
quarters  not  to  afford  assistance  a  day  longer  to  the  "  traitor." 
But  TVebster  was  so  far  beneath  the  moral  height  of  the 
party  that  he  believed  he  could  remain  some  time  still  in 
Tyler's  company  without  prejudice  to  the  salvation  of  his 
soul,  and  he  was  bold  enough  to  decide  himself  whether  his 
remaining  in  office  could  be  still  of  advantage  to  the  country. 
Highly  as  his  gifts  were  esteemed,  and  much  as  his  power 
was  appreciated,  this  moral  obliquity  was  so  great  that  the 
complete  repudiation  of  the  man  whom  his  ambition  had  mis- 
led, seemed  scarcely  avoidable.  If  he  would  not  hear,  he  had 
to  feel. 

As  early  as  January,  1842,  an  attempt  had  been  made  to 
repeal  the  bankrupt  law  again.  Although  it  was  certain  from 
the  first,  that  its  opponents  would  not  submit  to  defeat,  per- 
sonal ill-will  and  personal  jealousy  also  operated  here  as  an 

consider  what  would  have  been  the  state  of  the  country,  the  treasury,  and 
the  government  itself,  at  this  moment,  if  the  law  actually  passed,  for  rev- 
enue and  for  protection,  had  depended  on  whig  votes  alone.  After  all,  it 
passed  the  house  of  representatives  by  a  single  vote.  .  .  .  And  how 
was  it  in  the  senate?  It  passed  by  one  vote  again  there,  and  could  not 
have  passed  at  all  without  the  assistance  of  the  two  senators  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, of  Mr.  "Williams  of  Maine,  and  of  Mr.  Wright  of  New  York.  Let 
us  then  admit  the  truth,  .  .  .  that  it  was  necessary  that  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  other  party  should  come  to  the  assistance  of  the  whigs  to 
enable  them  to  carry  tlie  tariff,  and  that,  if  this  assistance  had  not  been 
rendered,  the  tariff  must  have  failed."  "Webst.'s  Works,  II,  pp.  130,  131. 
'  "  The  recent  elections  show  that  the  whig  party  is  broken  up,  and  per- 
haps can  never  be  reunited. ''  November  8, 1842.    Priv.  Corresp.,  II,  p.  152. 


THE  SESSION  OF  1842-43.  465 

incentive  to  action.*  "Webster  had  now  formally  challenged 
the  keepers  of  his  conscience,  his  enviers  and  rivals;  and  be- 
sides, one  half  of  the  contract  to  which  the  bankrupt  law  had 
owed  its  passage  was  destroyed  by  the  issue  of  the  struggle 
over  the  distribution  clause  in  the  tariff  bill.  With  redoubled 
enei-gy  they  returned  to  the  attack  and  won  a  brilliant  vic- 
tory.' 

And  this  was  the  most  material  acquisition  of  the  session  of 
1842-43.  There  was  no  lack  of  great  speeches,  but  little  was 
done.  Men  talked  themselves  hoarse  on  Oregon  and  the  as- 
sumption of  the  debts  of  the  states,  and  delighted  themselves 
with  interminable  speeches  of  doubtful  morality  on  the  re- 
funding of  a  money-fine  imposed  upon  Jackson  nearly  thirty 
years  before  on  account  of  his  violence  while  in  chief  com- 
mand at  l^ew  Orleans;  but  of  creative  progress  in  any  di- 
rection there  was  nothing  to  be  seen  anywhere.  Even  the 
struggle  between  Tyler  and  congress  had  reached  that  com- 
fortless stage  which  may  be  compared  to  the  sea  when  the 
waves,  lashed  by  the  storm,  rise  high,  but  when  the  dormant 
wind  has  not  power  enough  left  to  swell  the  sails.  No  veto 
came  to  fan  the  expiring  embers  into  a  blaze,  and  when  Botts, 
at  last,  on  the  10th  of  January,  1843,'  delivered  himself  of 

'  Adams  writes:  "  Its  first  object  is  the  prostration,  ruin  and  dismissal 
of  Webster."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  55.  A  few  days  later  he 
adds:  "The  new  coalition  is  thus  consummated.  Clay,  Calhoun,  Tyler, 
and  Van  Buren,  upon  their  Maelzel  chess-board,  have  checkmated  the 
north  and  the  free,  leaving  the  division  of  the  spoils  between  the  matadores 
to  be  settled  hereafter.  The  joke  is  that  Clay  and  Tyler  protest  as  gravely 
and  indignantly  against  this  movement  as  if  they  were  sincere."  Ibid., 
pp.  62,  63.    This  first  attempt  failed  in  the  senate. 

*  The  bill  was  adopted  in  the  house  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  forty 
against  seventy-one,  and  in  the  senate  by  thirty-two  against  thirteen. 
(Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  pp.  661,  716.)  It  was  signed  by  Tyler  on  the  8d 
of  March,  1843.    Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  614. 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  643.    The  resolutions  were  rejected  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  against  eighty-three.    Ibid.,  p.  645. 
80 


466  Jackson's  administeation — aitnexation  of  texas. 

the  impeachment  resolutions  with  which  he  had  been  bi^  so 
long,  the  impression  made  was  rather  comic  than  tragic.  The 
most  brilliant  period  of  the  session,  in  this  respect,  was  the 
rejection  of  the  Exchequer  Bill,  which  Tyler  had  previously, 
during  the  session,  caused  to  be  offered  as  a  substitute  for 
tlie  two  rejected  bank  bills,  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and 
ninety-three  against  eighteen.^  Whatever  satisfaction  there 
might  be  in  this  annihilating  criticism  of  Tyler's  financial 
wisdom  was  to  be  accorded  to  the  whigs,  since  the  people, 
in  the  elections  to  the  new  congress,  passed  a  still  severer 
judgment  on  it.  In  the  new  house  of  representatives,  the 
democrats  had  a  majority  of  two-thirds;  ^  the  democratic  can- 
date,  J.  "W".  Jones,  of  Yirginia,  was  chosen  speaker  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty- eight  against  fifty-nine,  which 
were  given  to  J.  White,  the  speaker  of  the  last  legislature.* 
The  semi- whig  or  pseudo-whig  period  of  Tyler's  administra- 
tion had  come  to  a  close. 

"What  were  the  lasting  results  to  the  political  development 
of  the  republic  of  this  two  years'  acrimonious  contention 
between  the  executive  and  legislative  branches  of  the  gov- 
ernment? It  is  in  vain  that  we  look  for  them.  It  is,  indeed, 
true  that  important  principles  were  involved  in  the  struggle, 
but  the  collision  of  the  opposing  forces  just  at  this  moment, 
and  with  so  much  violence,  was  by  no  means  made  necessary 
by  the  general  condition  of  affairs,  but  was  produced  by 
party  passion  and  one-sided  party  interest.  The  pinnacles  of 
the  great  and  permanent  interests  of  the  nation  towered  high 
above  the  storm  which  broke  with  so  much  violence  over  the 
transitory  interests  of  parties  and  their  leaders.  Great  as 
were  the  consequences  which  that  storm  had  here  in  the 
valley  of  political  life,  it  left  not  a  trace  on  the  heights  be- 

•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  682. 

«  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  449. 

•Thirty  Yeaxa'  View,  II,  p.  565. 


DBEAD  OF   THE   ABOLITIONISTS.  467 

yond.  The  differences  about  the  material  interests  of  the 
nation's  life  and  the  differences  of  parties  were  no  longer 
coincident.  The  lightning  struck  many  a  time  during.these 
two  years  also,  but  not  even  externally  or  apparently  did  it 
have  any  connection  with  this  storm.  And  yet  there  was 
not  one  who,  for  the  moment,  had  either  eye  or  ear  for  the 
scene  in  the  depths,  when  the  clouds  of  the  slavery  question 
were  suddenly  rent  by  a  stroke  of  lightning.  This  was  all 
the  more  significant  for  the  reason  that  the  sensibly  increas- 
ing sensitiveness  of  the  opposition  between  freedom  and  the 
slavocracy  could  not  possibly  be  ascribed  to  the  prevalence  of 
the  fanaticism  of  abolition.  Since  the  breach  on  the  woman 
question,  and  on  the  justifiableness  and  rightfulness  of  polit- 
ical action,  abolitionism,  in  the  naiTOwer  sense  of  the  term, 
had  been  retrograding.  Tlie  principal  societies  were  indeed 
still  flourishing,  and  manifested  great  activity,  but  the  ag- 
gregate number  of  societies  and  of  members  was  decreasing.* 
The  efforts  of  the  abolitionists  were  in  the  first  place  di- 
rected against  slavery  itself.  But  the  points  about  which 
the  parliamentary  struggle  turned  were  now,  as  well  as  pre- 
viously, the  right  of  petition  and  freedom  of  speech;  that 
is,  in  congress,  the  matter  in  debate  was  still  its  own  rights. 
The  better  this  came  to  be  understood  on  both  sides,  the 
more  was  the  south  concerned  to  achieve  a  decided  victory 
here,  although  its  declamations  were  directed  principally 
against  the  abolitionists.  By  remaining  constantly  on  guard 
and  keeping  up  the  battle,  abolitionism  was  still  of  great  im- 
portance, but  it  suffered  a  great  loss  when,  in  course  of  time, 
people  began  to  get  used  to  its  doctrinarian  radicalism.  The 
south  abhorred,  hated  and  despised  Garrison  and  his  com- 
panions with  all  the  intensity  of  which  its  hot  blood  was 
capable;  but  with  the  rage  of  the  wounded  blood-hound,  it 
hung  on  the  heels  of  those  who  —  heedless  alike  of  soph- 

>  See  Wilsoii.  Rise  and  Fall,  etc,  I,  pp.  566,  567. 


46^  Jackson's  ADMiinsTEATiojf  —  annexation  op  texas. 

istrj  and  threats  —  directed  their  shots  always  towards  the 
spot  which  the  dragon -blood  of  constitutional  compromise 
had  ilot  covered  over  with  the  impenetrable  armor  of  posi- 
tive law.  If  they  were  not  now  made  to  bite  the  dust,  the 
future  belonged  to  them;  for  the  abolitionists  would  be 
sooner  or  later  able  to  achieve  what  now  was  impossible: 
they  could  carry  the  masses  along  with  them.  The  knowl- 
edge of  this  fact  was  the  fury  which  goaded  the  south  during 
Tyler's  administration  to  the  last  desperate  attempts  at  gag- 
ging- 

Not  any  longer  alone,  but  still  before  all  others,  Adams 

stood  a  battler  for  the  absolute  recognition  of  those  two  fun- 
damental rights  of  the  free  popular  state.  It  is  easy  to  un- 
derstand why  it  was  that  the  slavocrats  would  have  liked, 
above  all  things,  to  effect  his  ruin.  There  was  no  one  his 
equal  in  the  authority  of  age,  of  experience,  of  knowledge,  or 
of  merit.  Alone  he  stood  in  his  severe  independence,  and  in 
the  unassailable  purity  of  his  character.  It  was  impossible 
to  impute  personal  ambition  to  him  as  a  motive  any  longer. 
Who  could  have  defended  himself  from  the  razor,  if  a  man 
like  Adams  had  been  compelled  to  let  drop  the  ornament  of 
the  free  man  under  the  shears  of  the  slavocracy?  The  calcula- 
tion was  a  false  one,  hard  as  the  blow  dealt  would  have  injured 
the  cause  of  liberty.  True,  the  masses  had  not  yet  gone  so 
far,  that  Adams,  like  Sampson,  could  have  torn  down  the 
pillars  of  the  house.  And  it  was  certain  that  no  one  man 
could  fill  his  place.  But  it  was  certain  also  that  the  masses 
would  have  streamed  in  and  filled  the  void  which  his  fall 
would  have  made.  The  very  thing  which  the  south  wished 
to  prevent  would  have  taken  place  all  the  sooner  and  all  the 
more  emphatically.  The  calculation  was,  indeed,  a  mistaken 
one,  but  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  south  calculated  in  that  way. 
The  general  onslaught  against  the  grim  old  combatant 
was  immediately  preceded  by  a  skirmish  which  bore  witness 


ADAMS   AKD   THE   SLAVOCRACT.  469 

how  far  the  hatred  and  fear  of  him  had  already  driven  the 
extremists.  There  is  something  in  human  nature  which 
puts  a  bridle  on  the  furious  tongue  even  in  respect  to  the 
lowest  pariah  when  he  stands  under  the  protection  of  snow- 
white  hairs.  Those  in  whose  veins  the  "chivalrous"  blood 
of  the  slavocracy  beat  fullest,  frequently  knew  nothing  of 
this  feeling  towards  the  old  man,  up  to  whose  knee  they 
came  in  no  respect  whatever.  It  was  to  the  bearers  of  the 
brightest  names  among  the  representatives  of  the  south,  in 
the  house  of  representatives,  to  whom  Adams  might  have 
more  than  once  cried  out,  like  Gloster  to  the  furious  Re- 
gan: 

"  These  hairs  which  thou  dost  ravish  from  my  chin. 
Will  quicken  and  accuse  thee." 

Like  Regan,  they  found  in  the  whiteness  of  the  hairs  only  a 
further  justification  of  their  action,  and  exclaimed,  full  of 
moral  indignation: 

'*  So  white,  and  such  a  traitor!  " 

On  the  21st  of  January,  1842,  Adams  laid  before  the  house 
a  petition  alleged  to  come  from  Georgia,  praying  for  his  re- 
moval from  the  chairmanship  of  the  committee  on  foreign 
affairs,  and  moved  its  reference  to  this  committee  with  in- 
struction to  chose  another  chairman  if  it  seemed  good  to 
them,'  Haversham,  of  Georgia,  declared  that  he  had  already 
intimated  to  the  gentlemen  from  Massachusetts  that  the 
petition  was  presumably  a  "  hoax."  Adams  did  not  think 
that  this  made  the  matter  any  better,  and  asked  that  he  might 
be  permitted  to  defend  himself  against  the  charges  made 
against  him  in  the  petition.  The  matter  came  up  for  dis- 
cussion on  the  following  day,  but  Adams  was  soon  silenced, 
and  when  he  wished  to  proceed  with  his  speech  on  the  24:th 
of  Jaimary,  the  house  refused  to  permit  him  to  do  so  by  a 
vote  of  ninety-one  against  seventy-six.     Hopkins,  of  Vir- 

»Nile8,  LXI,  p.  349. 


470  Jackson's  administeatiox  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ginia,  had  wished  to  modify  Adams's  motion  so  that  the  com- 
mittee should  be  instructed  to  comply  with  the  wish  of  tlie 
petition;  and  Gihuer,  himself  a  member  of  the  committee, 
inquired  whether  it  could  not  do  so  without  any  instruction 
from  the  house.  Rayner,  of  IS^orth  Carolina,  however,  car- 
ried off  the  palm;  he  deserved  well  of  his  country  inasmuch 
as  he  saved  its  honor  from  the  "harlequin"  from  Massachu- 
setts.' 

Adams  was  resolved  not  to  permit  the  matter  to  be  put 
to  one  side  in  an  ambiguous  manner,  but  to  bring  it  to  a 
decision.  When  he  brought  it  up  for  discussion  in  the  com- 
mittee, Gilmer  declared  himself  ready  to  take  it  up  in  a  formal 
way,  and  that  he  would  vote  for  Adams's  removal.^  He  thus 
injured  himself  greatly.  As  he  could  no  longer  hold  out  the 
hand  of  peace,  and  as  Adams  showed  himself  too  strong  for 
him  and  his  companions,  he.  Hunter  of  Virginia,  Rbett  of 
South  Carolina,  and  Proffit  sent  in  their  resignation.  In 
their  stead.  Cooper  of  Virginia,  Chapman  of  Alabama,  and 
Holmes  of  South  Carolina,  were  at  first  appointed  members 
of  the  committee,  but  at  their  request,  were  wrthont  diflB- 
culty  excused  by  the  house.  The  fact  that  six  slaveholders 
and  one  knight  of  the  slavocracy  declared  it  irreconcilable 
with  their  honor  to  sit  in  the  same  committee  with  Adams 
could  not  grieve  him,  but  only  add  to  his  triumph. 

It  was  not,  as  in  this  case,  an  easy  matter  with  the  slave 
barons,  once  they  had  compelled  their  opponents  to  cross 
weapons  with  them,  to  sheathe  their  swords  and  give  up  the 
field  without  a  blow.     But,  indeed,  nothing  else  now  re- 

'  ".  .  .  he  now  demanded  of  the  speaker  to  put  an  end  to  this  dis- 
graceful proceeding,  and  to  arrest  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  in 
disgracing  himself,  and  by  doing  this,  in  disgracing  the  country,  and  play- 
ing off  the  harlequin  here  in  this  grand  inquest  of  the  nation,  and  he  called 
on  the  chair,  by  the  honor  of  the  nation,  to  arrest  this  proceeding."  Niles, 
LXI,  p.  351. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  390. 


THE   HAVEEHILL    PETITION.  471 

mained  for  them  to  do  if  they  did  not  want  to  make  them- 
selves completely  ridiculous.  During  the  days  from  the  24:th 
of  January  to  the  5th  of  February,  the  great  decisive  battle 
between  Adams  and  the  slavocracy  was  fought,  and  the 
slavocracy  met  with  an  ignominious  defeat. 

After  the  debate  on  the  Georgia  petition  had  been  cut  off, 
Adams  presented  a  petition  to  the  house  from  citizens  of 
Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  requesting  congress,  without  delay, 
to  take  steps  toward  the  peaceable  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
The  ground  of  the  petition  was  the  difference  between  the 
north  and  south  growing  out  of  slavery,  but  the  word  slavery 
was  avoided.  Adams  moved  the  reference  of  the  petition  to 
a  committee,  with  instructions  to  set  forth  the  reasons  de- 
manding the  rejection  of  the  petition.  Hopkins  inquired 
whether  it  would  be  in  order  to  move  the  burning  of  the 
petition  in  the  presence  of  the  house?  But  his  colleagues, 
Wise  and  Gilmer,  did  not  wish  to  permit  the  bold  man  who 
had  dared  to  think  that  the  terrible  word  which  the  south 
made  on  every  occasion  the  theme  of  its  declamation,  should 
be  even  spoken  in  the  north.  They  demanded,  at  the  same 
time,  that  he  should  be  formally  censured.^  But  the  oppor- 
tunity was  too  good  a  one  not  to  create  some  fear  that  too 
great  haste  might  prevent  its  full  utilization.  The  gallows 
had  to  be  erected  according  to  all  the  rules  of  the  art,  in 
order  that  the  altogether  too  skillful  criminal  might  be 
finally  hoisted  up. 

In  the  evening,  a  numerously  attended  caucus  of  the 
southern  representatives  was  held.  A  formal  resolution  was 
not  drawn  up,  but  the  feeling  was  eWdently  in  favor  of  the 
resolutions  which  Marsliall,  of  Kentucky,  read,  with  the  re- 

*  Rayner's  laurels  excited  Gilmer's  envy;  and  he  endeavored  to  surpass 
tlie  coarseness  of  the  latter  by  the  following  quotation:  "He  .  .  . 
but  was  endeavoring  to  prevent  the  music  of  him  who,  in  the  space  of  one 
revolving  moon,  was  statesman,  poet,  fiddler  and  buffoon."  Niles,  LXl, 
p.  361. 


472   JACKSON'S  ADMINISTEATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

mark  that  he  would  certainly  move  them  the  next  day  in 
the  house.  According  to  his  own  admission,  he  had  in- 
tended, at  lirst,^  to  ask  the  expulsion  of  Adams,  but  as  he 
would  have  in  all  probability  been  reelected  by  his  constit- 
uents, he  refrained  from  doing  so  on  the  advice  of  friends. 
The  resolutions  contented  themselves  with  saying  that  his 
expulsion  was  fully  deserved,  and  representing  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  "  severest  censure  "  as  an  "  act  of  srrace  and 
mercy."  The  reasons  given  in  support  of  this  step  were  a 
masterpiece  of  the  peculiar  logic  which  distinguished  the 
knights  of  the  "  peculiar  institution."  That  with  which  on 
all  other  days  congress  was  threatened  suddenly  became  a 
"  direct  proposition  "  to  "  commit  perjury,"  because  it  came 
in  the  form  of  a  petition.  But  not  for  this  reason  alone  was 
the  presentation  of  the  petition  to  be  considered  the  greatest 
insult  to  the  house  and  to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
but  because  the  carrying  out  of  the  proposition  would  in- 
volve the  "crime  of  high  treason."^     The  circumstance  of 

'NUes,  LXI,  p.  393. 

*  The  resolutions  are  given  entire  in  Niles,  LXI,  p.  359.  Here  only  the 
two  principal  places  are  cited  verbatim:  "...  a  proposition,  there- 
fore, to  the  representatives  of  the  people  to  dissolve  the  organic  laws 
framed  by  their  constituents,  and  to  support  which  they  are  commanded  by 
those  constituents  to  be  sworn  before  they  can  enter  into  the  execution  of 
the  poUtical  powers  created  by  it  and  entrusted  to  them,  is  a  high  breach 
of  privilege,  a  contempt  offered  to  this  house,  a  direct  proposition  to  the 
legislature,  and  each  member  of  it,  to  commit  peijury,  and  involving 
necessarily  in  its  execution  and  its  consequences,  the  destruction  of  our 
country  and  the  crime  of  high  treason.  .  .  .  Resolved,  further.  That 
the  aforesaid  John  Q.  Adams,  for  this  insult,  the  first  of  the  kind  ever 
offered  to  the  government,  and  for  the  wound  which  he  has  permitted  to 
be  aimed,  through  his  instrumentality,  at  the  constitution  and  existence  of 
his  country,  the  peace,  the  security  and  hberty  of  the  people  of  these 
state?,  might  well  be  held  to  merit  expulsion  from  the  national  councils, 
and  the  house  deem  it  an  act  of  grace  and  mercy  when  they  only  inflict 
upon  him  their  severest  censure  for  conduct  so  utterly  unworthy  of  his  past 
relations  to  the  state  and  his  present  position.    This  they  hereby  do  for  the 


Ar>A\fa   DEFENDS   HIMSELF.  473 

secondary  consideration  that  Adams  had  moved  the  refusal 
of  the  petition  was  forojotten  by  Marshall  in  his  haste. 

Adams  at  first  answered  only  shortly.  He  caused  the  fii'st 
paragraphs  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  bo  read  to 
call  to  the  mind  of  the  house  that  the  United  States  began 
their  life  with  the  confession  of  faith  that  a  people  had  the 
right  to  alter  their  government,  to  change  it  or  destroy  it,  if 
its  continued  existence  became  irreconcilable  with  their  wel- 
fare. He  reminded  the  south  of  a  series  of  events  which 
had  liappened  in  very  recent  times,  and  which  afforded  most 
frightful  evidence  how  systematically  it  had  gone  to  work  to 
undermine  all  the  liberties  of  the  people  and  the  most  essen- 
tial rights  of  the  citizens,  so  that  there  really  was  no  lack  of 
material  for  the  discussion  of  the  question,  whether  the  case 
contemplated  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  oc- 
curred or  might  not  very  easily  occur  in  the  near  future. 
"  If  you  had  not  violated  the  right  of  petition  you  would 
never  have  seen  this  petition,"  he  cried  out  to  it.  He  re- 
minded Marshall  personally  that  the  constitution  itself  de- 
fined the  crime  of  high  treason,  and  had  not  left  that  task  to 
"  his  puny  mind." 

These  slight  intimations  should  have  warned  the  pack  of 
hounds  that  their  game  would  make  a  hard  stand,  even  if 
their  cowardly  desire  were  realized  and  Adams  were  com- 
pelled, without  any  time  for  consideration,  to  bring  forward 
what  he  had  to  say  in  his  defense  or  his  excuse.  But  the 
debate  proceeded  and  took  a  course  which  compelled  the  old 
man  to  stretch  his  intellectual  powers  to  their  point  of  great- 
est energy,  even  if  the  decaying  covering  of  his  fiery  spirit 
should  be  torn  to  shreds.  If  it  ever  was,  it  was  now,  a 
sacred  duty  to  himself  and  to  his  people  to  redeem  his  vow 

maintenance  of  their  own  purity  and  dignity;  for  the  rest,  they  turn  him 
over  to  his  own  conscience  and  the  indignation  of  all  true  American 
citizens '' 


474  JAOKSON^S  ADMINISTKATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

to  die  upon  the  breach.^  Wise  took  the  floor  and  erected  a 
monument  to  the  demoralizing  influence  of  slavery,  to  which 
few  of  the  many  unwilling  self-condemnations  of  the  south 
are  equal.  To  those  who  had  opposed  a  court-martial  exe- 
cution, he  defiantly  and  with  the  certainty  of  victory  sent 
the  challenge:  "  Come  on,  Macduff,  and  damn'd  be  he  who 
first  cries,  hold,  enongh!"* 

The  slave-mad  dog  tore  to  pieces  the  crown  of  this  life  of 
five  and  seventy  years,  sparing  not  a  single  sprig  of  green 
nor  a  single  bright  blossom  which  the  confidence  and  the 
reverent  recognition  of  the  people  had  woven  into  it.  The 
white-haired  hypocrite,  who,  from  the  earliest  years  of  his 
manhood,  had  not  shunned  desecrating  even  the  ashes  of  the 
dead  in  order,  parasite-like,  to  creep  around  the  tables  of  all 
the  influential,  stood  unmasked  at  last.  Henry  A.  Wise,of 
Virginia,  declared  himself  filled  with  "  loathing  "  and  "  con- 
tempt" for  John  Quincy  Adams.^  Henry  A.  Wise  stood 
like  the  angel  of  judgment  with  the  flaming  sword  in  his 
hand,  and  cried  out  to  all  the  world  that  John  Quincy  Adams 
was  as  politically  dead  as  Burr  and  Arnold,  and  that  the 
people  turned  shuddering  away  from  him.*    This  would  have 

'  He  has  written  in  his  diary  on  the  29th  of  March,  1841 :  "  The  world, 
the  flesh,  and  all  the  devils  in  heU  are  arrayed  against  any  man  who  now 
in  this  North  American  Union  shall  dare  to  join  the  standard  of  Almighty 
God  to  put  down  the  African  slave-trade;  and  what  can  1,  upon  the  verge 
of  my  seventy-fourth  birthday,  with  a  shaking  hand,  a  darkening  eye,  a 
drowsy  brain,  and  with  all  my  faculties  dropping  from  me  one  by  one,  as 
the  teeth  are  dropping  from  my  head  —  what  can  I  do  for  the  cause  of  God 
and  man,  for  the  progress  of  human  emancipation,  for  the  suppression  of 
the  African  slave-trade?  Yet  my  conscience  presses  me  on;  let  nie  but 
die  upon  the  breach.''    Mem.,  X,  p.  454. 

« Niles,  LXI,  p.  361. 

**'The  reason  [for  the  request  that  the  house  might  permit  him  to 
abstain  from  voting  on  the  resolutionj  is  the  personal  loathing,  dread  and 
contempt  1  feel  for  the  man."    Ibid.,  p.  366. 

*"The  gentleman  was  poUtically  dead;  dead  as  Burr — dead  as  Ar- 


Adams's  "trial."  475 

been  infinitely  comical  were  it  not  that  it  afforded  terrible 
evidence  whither  slavery  was  driving  the  south. 

Adams  did  not  consider  it  time  yet  to  begin  to  justify 
himself.  He  had  to  do  with  a  leg:il  question  the  decision 
of  which  had  a  bearing  of  inestimable  extent.  Hence  he 
could  not  have  permitted  his  feelings  to  make  him  surren- 
der his  first  position  without  a  struggle.  He  did  not  abstain 
from  orivinj' Wise  and  Marshall  a  few  hard  side-blows.  To 
the  latter,  he  gave  the  fatherly  advice,  if  he  would  accom- 
plish what  his  talents  fitted  him  for,  to  go  to  a  law  school  to 
learn  the  alphabet  of  the  rights  of  citizens  and  of  members 
of  the  house.*  Without,  however,  entering  more  in  detail 
into  the  subject  itself,  he  first  asked  the  house  for  a  formal 
resolution  on  the  question  whether  it  would  take  the  resola- 
tions  into  consideration  at  all.  The  house  answered  this 
question  in  the  affirmative,  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  against  seventy-five,  that  is,  it  claimed,  according 
to  Adams's  view,  the  right  to  "  try  him."^ 

Before  Adams  took  the  floor  again  after  this  decision,  three 
southern  representatives  entered  the  lists  for  him,  and  not 

nold.  The  people  would  look  ui>on  him  with  wonder,  would  shudder,  and 
retire."    Ibid,  p.  364, 

'  Where  did  the  gentleman  get  his  law.  Assuredly  not  from  his  nnde 
Ifrom  Chief  Justice  Marshall]  ...  He  has  talents  to  make  himself 
the  ornament  and  the  glory  of  his  country;  but  if  he  means  to  do  so,  let 
him  go  home  —  let  him  go  to  some  law  school,  and  learn  a  little  of  the 
rights  of  the  citizens  of  these  states  and  of  the  members  of  this  house  — 
let  him  learn  that  if  there  is  a  disgrace  in  this  house  it  is  the  presentation 
of  such  resolutions  as  these  which  he  has  oflFered  against  one  of  its  mem- 
bers, charging  him  with  crimes,  ready  to  admit  them  as  proofs  of  crimes, 
and  oflFering  them  as  if  the  party  impUcated  had  been  tried  and  found 
guilty.  That  is  the  foundation  of  his  resolution:  nor  can  the  house  adopt 
them  without  deciding  that  the  pereon  is  guilty  of  those  crimes."  Ibid., 
p.  365. 

*  Adams  looked  upon  the  resolutions  as  a  criminal  complaint,  and  hence 
claimed  all  the  weapons  of  defense  guaranteed  by  the  sixth  amendment  of 
the  constitution  to  a  person  criminally  prosecuted. 


476  Jackson's  administbaticn  -^  annexation  of  texas. 

with  blades  of  straw  instead  of  lances.  Underwood,  of  Ken- 
tucky, proudly  wore  the  black  feather  of  the  slavocracy,  but 
he  revolted  at  the  attempt  to  punish  Adams  "for  an  imputed 
motive."  He  saw  more  clearly,  too,  than  the  great  majority 
of  the  slave-holders.  Dissolve  the  Union,  he  said,  and  it  is 
all  over  with  slavery  in  the  border  states;  your  gag-laws  are 
a  suicidal  folly.'  Botts  catechised  his  southern  colleagues 
with  the  similitude  of  the  mote  and  the  beam,  and  reminded 
them,  among  other  things,  that  the  secretary  of  the  navy, 
Upshur,  of  Virginia,  was  a  decided  advocate  of  the  immediate 
dissolution  of  the  Union.  And  Arnold,  of  Tennessee,  called 
on  them  to  reflect  that  Wise  and  Marshall,  by  their  want  of 
moderation,  had  fought  a  great  battle  for  the  abolitionists, 
and  gave  them  some  good  instruction  as  to  the  demeanor 
which  was  to  be  expected  of  "boys"  towards  old  men. 

It  is  questionable  whether  Wise  would  still  have  exclaimed: 
"  damn'd  be  he  who  first  cries,  hold,  enough."  Marshall's 
speech  of  the  28th  of  January,  against  Adams,  showed  that 
his  certainty  of  victory  was  already  greatly  diminished.  And 
now  Adams  began  his  defense.  He  demanded  a  great  num- 
ber of  documents  which  he  said  were  necessary  to  his  defense. 
Although  the  house  acceded  only  in  small  part  to  his  de- 
mand, it  soon  became  apparent  that  he  was  not  lacking  in 
material.  He  had  repeatedly  offered  to  leave  the  time  of  the 
house  to  its  legitimate  legislative  tasks  if  an  end  were  put  to 
his  trial  for  heresy  in  a  manner  which  he  could  accept.  As 
his  offer  had  not  been  accepted,  he  now  declared  himself 
freed  from  all  responsibility  as  to  how  many  days  or  even 
weeks  he  might  need  for  his  defense.  And  it  might  be  weeks 
if  not  months,  for  his  defense  was  to  be  the  whole  dark  his- 
tory of  the  slavocracy.  What  Gilmer,  Wise  and  Marshall 
wanted  of  this  man,  with  his  powerful  mind,  his  incisive 

'"  If  we  cannot  bear  the  discussion  of  this  question  we  are  ahready  gone  — 
gone  beyond  all  hope  of  redemption."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  367. 


ADAMS*8    "trial."  477 

logic,  his  unsurpassed  knowledge,  his  biting  sarcasm  and  high 
moral  nobility,  was  not  that  he  should  follow  this  history 
into  its  minutest  details  and  expose  its  deepest  and  moet  se- 
cret folds  to  the  eyes  of  the  people.  But  Adams  was  not 
willing  to  give  them  any  quarter.  He  felt,  indeed,  that  the 
batthi  was  consuming  the  remnants  of  his  life,  but  his  brain 
unceasingly,  through  the  long  nights,  forged  new  weapons 
out  of  the  materials  collected  for  that  purpose  by  his  friends. 
The  criminal  was  transformed  into  the  judge,  and  in  the 
wbole  Union  there  was  not  a  man  who  could  go  to  judgment 
with  the  slavocracy  with  such  destructive  results  to  it  as 
Adams.  The  "  boys "  had  wished  to  hit  him  over  the 
knuckles,  but  the  scourge  in  bis  hands  cut  bloody  streaks  in 
their  flesh.  Tlieir  pledged  "honor"  made  the  scourged 
knights  keep  their  word,  but  the  entire  slavocracy  breathed 
heavily  wlien  he  was  ready  to  stop,  and  the  whole  matter  was 
laid  on  the  table  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  six  against 
ninety-three,  on  the  5th  of  February.* 

This  "  trial "  of  John  Quincy  Adams  was  far  removed 
from  being,  as  had  been  repeatedly  claimed  in  the  debate,  a 
fruitless  vexation.  It  was  one  of  the  most  decisive  battles 
for  one  of  the  most  important  principles,  a  battle  pregnant 
with  the  greatest  consequences.  Adams  was  entirely  right 
when  he  said  that  all  the  attempts  hitherto  made  against 
the  right  of  petition  were  thrown  far  into  the  shade  by  the 
Marshall  resolutions.  If  the  house  could  declare  one  petition 
to  be  80  monstrous,  that  the  simple  presentation  of  it  made 
a  representative  liable  to  be  severely  punished,*  it  might  do 

•Nile8,LXl,p.383.  '  ; 

*  Adams  never  had  anything  to  say  against  the  responsibUity  which  the 
representative  bears,  according  to  English  paxliamentary  usage,  for  every 
petition  presented  by  him.  But  not  a  word  of  blame  waa  uttered  by  ajiy 
one  as  to  the  form  of  the  Haverhill  petition,  and  ita  contents  did  not  vio- 
late any  principle  of  the  general  moral  law,  but  was  concerned  witi  « 
purely  political  question. 


478  Jackson's  admintstb-^tion  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  same  in  regard  to  every  petition  which  it  might  desire 
to  qualify  in  the  same  manner.^  The  gag-rules  were  the  ap- 
plication of  an  objectionable  and  unconstitutional  principle 
to  a  very  definite  question.  Marshall's  resolutions,  on  the 
other  hand,  contained  the  general  recognition  of  this  prin- 
ciple, involved  the  right  of  applying  it  to  every  case,  at  pleas- 
ure, and  pushed  its  consequences  to  the  extreme.  Marshall's 
resolutions  were  a  forward  movement,  along  the  whole  line, 
from  the  position  of  the  gag-rules.  But  such  forward 
movements  in  politics  never  end  in  the  simple  restoration  of 
the  status  ante.  Adams  had  not  only  repelled  the  attack, 
but  by  this  means  of  itself  greatly  promoted  the  winning 
back  what  had  been  previously  lost:  he  had  taken  the  gag 
out  of  the  month  of  the  people  for  all  time.  On  the  2d  of 
March,  Giddings  presented  a  petition  from  Austinburg,  in 
Ohio,  to  the  house,  praying  for  a  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Not  a  word  was  now  heard  of  censure,  of  the  disgrace  of  the 
house,  of  a  proposition  to  commit  perjury  or  high  treason. 
Without  any  pomp  or  flourish  of  trumpets,  the  acceptance 
of  the  petition  was  refused  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  and  six- 
teen against  twenty-four.'^ 

The  victory  was  a  great  one,  but  there  was  still  much  to 


'  "  Where  is  his  law  for  charging  a  constituent  with  high  crimes  and 
misdemeanors  for  exercising  the  constitutional  right  of  petition  ?  Where 
in  law  is  one  such  word  to  be  found  ?  But  if  the  house  do  assume  such  a 
power  —  if  they  claim  such  an  authority  in  this  case  —  they  assume  it  in 
reference  to  every  petition  presented  here.  They  assert  a  discretionary 
power  in  this  house  to  punish  a  constituent  for  presenting  any  petition.  If 
you  can  punish  him  for  presenting  a'  petition  peaceably  to  dissolve  this 
Union,  then  you  can  punish  for  the  presentation  of  every  abolition  petition. 
If  the  alleged  right  shall  ever  once  be  exercised,  that  will  come  next.  .  .  . 
I  have  called  on  the  gentleman  again  and  again  for  his  law.  He  cannot 
show  any.  And  I  say  he  falsifies  my  purposes  by  assuming  that  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  object  of  the  petition."    Niles,  LXI,  p.  410. 

» Niles,  LXI  I,  p.  150.    See  also  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  109. 


CASE   OF   THE    "  CREOLE."  479 

do.  The  moutli  of  tlie  representatives  of  the  people  was  still 
closed,  and  might  have  remained  closed  a  considerable  time 
longer,  if  the  slavocracy  had  not  allowed  itself  to  be  carried 
away,  by  its  rage  over  the  defeat  jnst  suffered,  to  a  course 
of  violence  entirely  unparalleled  even  in  its  own  annals.  If 
Adams  had  torn  their  rope  in  pieces,  it  was  perhaps  still 
strong  enough  for  a  Giddings,  especially  if  the  noose  were 
drawn  without  leaving  him  time  even  to  open  his  mouth. 

On  the  27th  of  October,  1841,  the  brig  "  Creole,"  with  a 
cargo  of  over  a  hundred  slaves,  had  set  sail  from  Hampton  for 
New  Orleans,  On  the  7th  of  November,  a  part  of  the  slaves 
had  revolted  and  overpowered  the  crew.  One  of  the  slave- 
owners was  killed  in  the  struggle.  Two  days  later  the  brig  ran 
into  the  harbor  of  Nassau.  The  English  authorities  of  the 
island  acted  with  the  mass  of  the  slaves,  as  they  had  always 
done  in  such  cases.  Those  charged  with  the  revolt  and  with 
the  murder  were  imprisoned  to  await  examination,  but  their 
surrender  without  the  command  of  the  government  to  the 
American  consul  was  refused.  Webster  hastened  to  state  the 
grievances  of  this  mode  of  procedure,  in  a  dispatch  to  the 
minister  in  London.*  The  reasons  on  which  the  dispatch  was 
based,  started  out  with  the  assumption  that  the  flag  of  the 
United  States  caused  the  blacks  to  remain  slaves  even  on  the 
high  seas,  because' the  voyage  of  the  "  Creole  "  from  Yirginia 
to  Louisiana,  with  slaves  on  board,  was  "  perfectly  lawful," 
and  because  the  slaves  were  "recognized  as  property  by  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States  in  those  states  (1)  in  which 
slavery  exists."  He  accordingly  looked  upon  the  negroes  as 
guilty  of  "  mutiny  and  murder,"  and  declared  that  the  law  of 
nations  made  it  the  duty  of  England  to  surrender  them.  The 
argument  was  based  so  entirely  on  the  resolutions  of  Calhoun 
of  the  4th  of  March,  1840,  already  mentioned,  that  he  took 

>Nile8,  LXI,  pp.  403,  404;  January  29,  1842. 


480  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

occasion,  in  the  senate,  to  express  his  entire  satisfaction  with 
them.^ 

Giddings,  in  the  house,  met  this  view  of  the  administra- 
tion, on  the  21st  of  March,  1842,  with  a  series  of  resolutions, 
the  essential  contents  of  which  was  briefly  the  following: 
since  slavery  abridges  the  natural  rights  of  man,  it  can  exist 
only  by  virtue  of  a  positive  municipal  law,  and  is  necessarily 
confined  to  the  jurisdiction-territory  of  the  power  which 
makes  it;  that  the  jurisdiction  of  the  separate  states  of  the 
Union  did  not  extend  over  the  high  seas;  that  the  negroes 
on  board  the  "  Creole "  had  violated  no  law  of  the  United 
States,  since  they  had,  on  the  high  seas,  placed  themselves 
again  in  possession  of  their  natural  right  to  liberty,  and  had, 
therefore,  incurred  no  legal  punishment;  that  any  attempt  to 
obtain  control  over  them  again,  or  to  make  slaves  of  them 
again,  was  not  warranted  by  the  constitution  or  the  laws  of  the 
United  States,  and  was  irreconcilable  with  the  national  honor.* 


That  was  more  than  the  nerves  of  the  slaveholders  could 
bear.  Botts,  who  had  just  striven  for  the  right  of  petition, 
demanded  the  administration  of  a  severe  censure,  and  based 
his  motion  on  the  following  considerations:      1.  Tliat  no 

'  "  The  letter  which  had  been  read  was  drawn  up  with  great  ability,  and 
covered  the  grourid  which  had  been  assumed  on  this  subject  by  all  parties 
in  the  senate.  He  hoped  that  it  would  have  a  beneficial  effect,  not  only 
upon  the  United  States,  but  Great  Britain.  Coming  from  the  quarter  it 
did,  this  document  would  do  more  good  than  in  coming  from  any  other 
quarter."  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  413.  It  deserves  to  be  mentioned, 
that  Adams,  as  early  as  March,  1841,  speaks  of  Webster's  "  extreme  soUci- 
tude  to  conciliate  the  south."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  448.  In  June, 
1843,  he  calls  him  "  a  heartless  traitor  to  the  cause  of  human  freedom." 
Ibid,  XI,  p.  384. 

» Giddings,  Hist,  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  180.  On  this  occasion,  Adams  de- 
clared against  the  principle  hitherto  universally  recognized,  that  the  con- 
stitution had  left  "  exclusive  jurisdiction  "  over  slavery  to  the  states  within 
their  respective  Hmits,  and  made  the  assertion  which  seemed  insane  to  the 
south,  that,  in  case  of  invasion  or  of  insurrection,  the  government  of  tha 
Union  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  abolish  slavery. 


TREATMENT  OP  GIDDING8.  481 

good  citizen,  and  especially  no  representative,  should  excite 
dissatisfaction  or  provoke  a  division  of  views  in  respect  to  a 
question  on  which  diplomatic  negotiations  were  pending, 
and  which  might  precipitate  England  and  the  United  States, 
and  perhaps  the  "  whole  civilized  world,"  into  a  war;  and 
2.  That  Giddings's  resolutions  countenanced  sedition  and 
murder.'  As  Botts  at  the  moment  was  not  entitled  to  intro- 
duce a  resolution,  he  asked  for  a  suspension  of  the  rules.  As 
a  few  votes  were  wanting  to  make  up  the  two- thirds  major- 
ity ^  required  for  the  adoption  of  this  motion,  a  representative 
fi'om  the  northern  states,  and  a  special  colleague  of  Giddings, 
Weller,  of  Ohio,  prostituted  himself  so  far  as  not  only  to 
adopt  the  Botts  resolution,  but  also  to  move  the  previous 
question  demanded  by  Botts.'  If  this  were  granted,  not 
only  would  all  debate  have  been  cut  off,  but  all  opportunity 
for  Giddings  to  defend  himself.  If  he  wished  to  say  any- 
thing in  his  justification,  he  had  to  do  it  under  the  name  of 
a  "privileged  question,"  before  the  taking  of  the  vote. 
He  asked  a  postponement  for  a  few  days  in  vain.  The  house 
adjourned  without  having  come  to  a  vote.  On  the  following 
day,  the  debate  was  continued  a  while  on  all  kinds  of  ques- 
tions of  order,  but  the  result  of  all  the  talk  was  that  the  pre- 
vious question  was  resolved  upon  by  ninety-five  against 
ninety -one  votes;  that  Giddings  had  no  opportunity  to  speak, 
and  that  the  Botts-Weller  resolutions  were  adopted  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  against  sixty-nine.  As  soon 
as  the  vote  was  announced,  Giddings  resigned  his  position, 
took  formal  leave  of  the  speaker,  and  left  the  halL 

Of  the  representatives  of  the  northern  states,  forty-seven 

*  See  the  wording  of  Botts's  motion.    Niles,  LXTI,  p.  62. 

*  One  hundred  and  twenty-eight  against  sixty-eight 

*  Adams  calls  Weller  "  the  rankest  Five-Points  democrat  in  the  house," 
Mem.,  XI,  192.  At  that  time,  the  Five- Points  were  the  criminal  portion 
of  the  city  of  New  York,  which  had  become  proverbial. 

31 


482  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

had  voted  with  the  majority,  and  twenty-five  had  refrained 
from  voting,  or  were  absent.  Only  about  one-half  had  had 
the  courage  to  oppose  this  f^ttempt  on  the  freedom  of  speech 
and  of  conviction  of  the  representative,  an  attempt  as 
cowardly  as  it  was  bold;  and  over  one-third  had  participated 
in  it.^  But  there  was  a  higher  court  to  which  an  appeal 
from  congress  might  be  taken.  "Was  it  expected  that  the 
northern  population  would  approve  the  branding  of  the 
checks  of  their  representatives  for  the  reason  that  these  rep- 
resentatives dared  be  of  the  conviction  that  no  power  had 
been  granted  to  the  federal  authorities  to  turn  the  constitn- 
tion  and  the  laws  of  the  Union  into  handcuffs  and  a  lash  for 
the  use  of  the  slave-bailiffs,  and  because  they  considered 
their  approval  of  the  slave  trade  between  state  and  state  as  a 
blot  on  the  national  honor?  The  vote  on  the  Botts-Weller 
resolution  is  one  of  the  acts  of  lowest  debasement  of  the  poli- 
ticians of  the  northern  states  under  their  masters,  the  slave- 
holders, and  one  of  the  acts  of  lowest  debasement  of  the  slave 
barons  under  their  mistress,  slavery.  Never  did  Henry  Clay 
do  himself  so  much  honor  as  at  the  moment  when  he  thanked 
Giddings  for  the  firmness  with  which  he  had  opposed  that 
violence  which  cried  to  heaven.'  The  slaveholder,  Henry 
Clay,  declared  it  to  be  a  monstrous  thing,  that  a  representa- 
tive should  be  punished  for  the  exposition  of  his  views 
against  the  slave  trade  from  state  to  state  under  the  national 
flag,  while  the  executive  and  the  senate  were  occupied  with 
the  task  of  engaging  the  nation  to  protect  that  trade  to  an 
extent  which  could  not  yet  be  calculated.  Was  it  believed 
that  the  population  of  the  northern  states  would  quietly  ac- 
commodate themselves  to  the  fact  that  the  slavocrats  should 

'  Only  two  representatives  from  the  southern  states,  Pope  and  Under- 
wood, of  Kentucky,  voted  against  the  resolution.  See  the  list  of  votes  by 
states  in  Giddings's  Hist,  of  the  Rebellion,  pp.  186-188. 

•Hist,  of  the  Rebellion,  p.  189. 


GIDDmOS    BEELECTED.  483 

determine  the  limits  beyond  which,  under  penalty  of  defam- 
i.tory  censure,  the  constitutional  convictions  of  no  repre- 
sentative should  presume  to  be  unfavorable  to  their  exclusive 
interests?  There  were  places  left  in  the  Union  in  which 
such  an  imputation  called  forth  the  most  violent  indignation. 

When  Giddings  reached  out  his  hand  to  take  leave  of 
Adams,  the  old  man's  emotion  was  so  deep  that  he  could 
only  say:  "I  hope  we  shall  soon  have  you  back  again."* 
Giddings  was  reelected  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and 
with  instructions  to  introduce  his  resolutions  once  more. 
This  was  a  plain  answer  to  the  audacious  venture  of  the 
glavocracy.  Only  by  all  sorts  of  parliamentary  stratagem 
could  the  proud  masters  protect  themselves  from  the  humil- 
iation of  being  obliged  to  listen  to  the  resolutions  once  more, 
and  to  dispose  of  them  in  some  decent  manner.  Many  of 
them  finally  recognized  that  the  entire  gag-policy  had  been, 
indeed,  a  suicidal  folly.  The  potion  was  a  bitter  one,  nor 
was  it  sweetened  by  the  fact  that  the  slavocracy  would  soon 
have  to  be  satisfied,  if  only  the  peace  of  the  "  correct "  doc- 
trines were  not  disturbed  in  the  records.  What  was  obtained 
from  England  in  the  negotiations  with  Lord  Ashburton 
amounted  to  the  general  promise  that,  in  these  complicated 
cases,  in  future,  it  would  take  pains  to  be  formally  as  con- 
siderate as  possible.  Even  Calhoun  enveloped  himself  hence- 
forth in  dignified  silence  on  this  question.'*  It  was  the  sorry 
consolation  of  the  boy  worsted  in  the  scuffle,  that  others 
had  assured  him  the  south  had,  by  no  means,  given  up  its 
claims,  but  only  waited  for  a  more  opportune  time  to  assert 
them  once  more  against  England. 

The  defeat  of  the  slavocracy  in  the  case  of  Giddings,  how- 

'  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  114. 

*  Giddings  says,  that  so  far  as  he  was  informed,  Calhoun  himself  never 
again  touched  upon  the  question  in  private  conversation.  Hist,  of  the 
RebeUion,  p.  192. 


484  Jackson's  admtnistk  ation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ever,  was  of  importance  not  in  relation  to  the  gag-policy 
only.  Giddings's  resolutions  were  based  on  one  general  fun- 
damental thought  of  the  greatest  scope.  This  thought  had 
been  frequently  expressed  by  others  before  hira,  and  the  . 
right  consequences  in  regard  to  the  one  and  the  other  con- 
crete question  had  been  already  drawn.  But  to  Giddings 
more  than  to  any  other  person  belongs  the  credit  of  having, 
with  full  consciousness,  made  it  the  constitutional  basis  of 
his  entire  warfare  against  the  slavocracy,  and  of  having  ap- 
plied it  with  a  consistency  never  before  attained  to  all  ques- 
tions to  which  it  was  pertinent.  He  adopted  entirely  the 
principle  of  his  opponents:  slavery  is  exclusively  a  matter 
of  the  slave  states;  and  with  them  he  drew  the  logically 
correct  conclusion:  let  ns  alone!  This  was,  at  every  step,  a 
bad  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  the  south,  over  which  it 
might,  indeed,  easily  jump,  but  which  it  was  never  able  to 
remove.  This  was  a  process  of  reasoning  which  was  clear 
to  the  plain  and  simple,  with  too  little  culture,  and,  perhaps, 
too  much  sound  common  sense,  to  be  influenced,  to  any  con- 
siderable extent,  by  the  hair-splitting  deductions  from  every 
jot  and  tittle  of  the  constitution.  Here  was  found  the 
formula  of  a  letter  of  excuse  addressed  to  the  slavocracy, 
which  seemed  completely  reconcilable  with  the  keeping 
sacred  of  all  the  obligations  of  positive  law. 

This  was,  indeed,  no  more  than  a  pretence.  The  con- 
stitution contained  provisions  such  that  there  was  no  need 
of  the  arts  of  the  lawyer  to  demonstrate  the  untenableness 
of  this  "  let  us  alone "  on  the  one  side  and  the  other. 
And  interests  were  so  interlaced  that  they  were  considered 
of  far  more  importance  than  any  constitutional  justification 
and  obligation.  But  the  more  strongly  the  one  side  of  the 
legal  relation  created  by  the  constitution  was  emphasized 
in  the  camps  of  the  two  armies  —  and  it  was  the  same 
side  in  both  —  the  more  apparent  became  the  impossibility 


THK  DECLAKATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.        485 

of  harmonizing  theory  and  practice.     The  opposing  forces 
mutually  forced  each  other  more  and   more  emphatically 
on   to  the  ground   of  pure  facts,  by  the  manner  in  which 
they  rode  their  theories.     If  the  south,  under    the  leader- 
ship of  the  arch-doctrinarian,  Calhoun,  had  been  greatly 
in  advance  of  its  opponents   here,  the  latter  now   began 
the  more    rugged    development  of  another   side    of  their 
doctrinarianism,  which   necessarily  brought  them,  after  a 
few  bounds,  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  their  antipodes.     The 
appeal  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  as  a  secondary 
constitution,    which   demanded   more    consideration    than 
the  constitution   inasmuch   as  it  preceded  the  latter  and 
formed  the  real  basis  of  the  republic,  becomes  more  and 
more  frequent.'      It  was   sought  to  find  in  it  not  only 
the  real  sentiments  of  the  fathers  of  the  republic  in  order 
to   make   use  of    the   moral    weight    of    their    authority, 
but  people  began  to  treat  it  as  a  binding  legal  instrument. 
This  was  the  first  conscious  step  beyond  the  constitutiDn, 
and  on  to  the  ground  of  a  "  higher  law."     It  was  the  incip- 
ient breaking  through  of  a  revolutionary  spirit  with  certain 
northern  politicians  —  a  spirit  which,  like  that  of  the  abo- 
litionists, soughta  foothold  in  absolute  ethical  principles,  but 
which,  in  contrast  with  the  abolitionists,  maintained  abase 
of  operations  for  practical  politics,  inasmuch  as  it  ascribed 
to  the  general  politico-philosophical   principles  of  a  revolu- 
tionary manifesto  the  binding  force  of  principles  of  law. 

Tlie  more  consistently  this  ingenuous  view  was  developed 
by  individuals,  the  more  probable  it  became  that  many  would 
adopt  it  \vithout  reserve.     That,  in  the  course  of  years,  it 

'  Giddings  complains  that  even  in  1831,  "no  public  man  [now]  main- 
tained the  pi-inciples  enunciated  in  the  declaration  of  independence.  No  one 
raised  his  voice  in  support  of  those  '  self-evident  truths '  which  consti- 
tuted the  foundation  of  our  republican  edifice."  Hist,  of  the  Rebellion, 
p.  98. 


4-86  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

would  obtain  great  influence  over  the  mode  of  thought  of 
the  masses  in  the  free  states  was  altogether  probable.  In 
the  feeling  of  the  people,  the  declaration  of  independence  was 
equal  in  rank  to  the  constitution.  Hence,  where  the  utter- 
ances of  the  latter  were  not  entirely  clear,  the  principles  of 
the  former  could  be  carried  into  the  battle  as  heavy  artillery, 
with  a  success  greater  in  proportion  as  both  the  demands  of 
their  own  interests  and  the  moral  feeling  and  convictions  of 
the  entire  civilized  world,  not  a  party  to  the  controversy, 
were  in  harmony  with  them. 

The  most  recent  experience  had  furnished  new  proof  how 
rapidly  the  slavocracy's  absence  of  moderation  carried  the 
conviction  into  circles  which  grew  wider  every  day,  that  that 
absence  of  moderation  endangered  the  highest  interests  and 
goods  not  only  of  the  free  states,  but  of  the  whole  republic, 
in  the  extreme.  Adams's  trial  was  followed  with  intense 
excitement  as  a  great  national  affair,  and  the  inquisitorial 
proceedings  against  Giddings  were  succeeded  by  indignation 
meetings  in  the  most  different  portions  of  the  north.  Con- 
demnatory judgments  which  should  have  caused  the  south 
to  reflect,^  were  expressed  even  by  democrats,  and  another 
lesson  followed  on  the  heels  of  these  which  bore  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  vain  folly  of  the  attempt  to  place  the  United 
States  on  an  insulating  stool  in  the  interest  of  the  slavocracy 
in  the  face  of  the  moral  convictions  of  all  the  rest  of  the  civi- 
lized world. 

On  the  20th  of  December,  1841,  England,  France,  Russia, 
Prussia  and  Austria  had  concluded  in  London,^  the  so-called 
quintuple  treaty  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade.     On 

'  William  Cullen  Bryant,  the  publisher  of  the  "  New  York  Evening 
Post,"  said  that  he  would  use  all  his  influence  to  secure  the  reelection  of 
(Jiddings,  if  he  lived  in  the  same  district.     Ibid.,  p.  191. 

*  The  full  text  of  the  treaty  and  of  the  instructions  to  the  cruisers  of  Vr*» 
treaty  powers  is  printed  in  Niles,  LXII,  pp.  89-91. 


CASS's   PAMPHLET.  487 

the  Ist  of  February,  1842,  there  appeared  in  Paris  an  anonj- 
inous  pamphlet  from  the  pen  of  the  American  ambassador 
in  France,  Lewis  Cass,  on  the  question  pending  between  the 
United  States  and  tlie  English  government,  on  the  right  of 
search.'  The  expressed  object  of  the  pamphlet  was  to  open 
the  eyes  of  the  treaty  powers  to  the  fact  that  they  were  on 
tlie  point  of  falling  into  the  philanthropic  snare  of  ambitions 
England,  and  sacrifice  to  her  the  freedom  of  the  sea  by 
guarantying  to  each  other  for  certain  seas  the  mutual  right 
of  the  search  of  merchantmen  carrying  their  flag,  and  sus- 
pected of  being  engaged  in  the  slave  trade.  The  pamplilet 
was  followed,  on  the  13th  of  February,  by  a  protest  of  Cass, 
directed  to  Guizot,  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  against 
the  ratification  of  the  quintuple  treaty  by  France,^  which  the 
chamber  of  deputies  then  actually  prevented.  The  protest, 
which  Adams  called  "absurd,"'  was,  as  Cass  expressly 
stated,  put  forth  on  his  own  responsibility  entirely,  but  was 
approved  in  a  dispatch  of  the  secretary  of  state  dated  the 
5th  of  April,  1842,  in  the  name  of  the  president.*  To  my 
knowledge,  there  is  no  proof  that  AVebster  had  maintained 
another  view  against  Tj'ler,  and  had  only  accommodated 
himself  to  the  judgment  of  the  president.  But  there  is 
very  direct  evidence  that  he  charged  Cass  with  courting 
popularity  throughout  his  whole  course,'  and  passed  a  very 

'  The  pamphlet  is  printed  in  Ml  in  Niles,  LXII,  pp.  54-60. 
•Ibid.,  pp.  229,  230. 

•  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  337.  On  the  next  day  Adams  expresses 
himself  on  the  protest  in  his  diary,  in  the  following  manner:  '*  Cass's 
protest  ...  is  a  compound  of  Yankee  cunning,  of  Italian  perfidy, 
and  of  French  legferet^,  cemented  by  shameless  profligacy,  unparalleled  in 
American  diplomacy.  Tyler's  approval  of  it  is  at  once  dishonest,  mean, 
insincere,  and  hollow-hearted."    Ibid.,  p.  338. 

^  "The  president  directs  me  to  say  that  he  approves  your  letter,  and 
warmly  commends  the  motives  which  animated  you  in  presenting  it" 
Niles,  LXIV,  p.  71. 

•  •'  He  [Webster]  spoke  with  great  severity  of  the  conduct  both  of  Cass 


488  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

unfavorable  judgment  on  the  deductions  of  law  of  the 
pamphlet,  which  constituted  the  real  substratum  of  the  pro- 
test.' 

The  pamphlet  and  the  protest  caused  a  great  sensation  in 
the  United  States.  Cass's  name  was,  for  a  time,  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  in  the  nation.  England  could  not  complain 
of  this  feeling,  for  it  was  the  entirely  legitimate  fruit  of  the 
ruthlessness,  frequently  amounting  to  brutality,  with  which 
it  had  forcibly  exercised  the  right  of  search  on  the  ocean, 
which  it  claimed,  andemployed  it  in  the  pressing  of  sailors. 
Cass's  feeling  on  the  great  injustice  which  his  country  had 
had  to  endure  in  this  respect  for  man}'  years,  was  unques- 
tionably not  assumed.  But  he  either  purposely  colored  the 
picture  too  highly,  or  he  was  better  adapted  to  represent  this 
delicate  question  before  an  excited  popular  meeting  tliau  in 
a  council  of  diplomats.  There  were  a  great  many  important 
questions  to  be  settled  between  England  and  the  United 
States,  and  the  feeling  between  the  two  countries,  at  times, 
ran  very  high.  But  when  Cass  represented  England's  atti- 
tude in  this  very  question  to  be  so  threatening  that  he  en- 
deavored to  drive  his  government  into  the  making  of  vigor- 
ous preparations  for  an  offensive  and  defensive  war,'^  he  was 

and  of  Stevenson  upon  this  subject,  and  said  they  thought  to  make  great 
poUtical  headway  upon  a  popular  gale."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  243. 

'Mr.  Webster  to  Mr.  Everett,  April  26,  1842:  "I  must  say,  between 
ourselves,  that  General  Cass's  pamphlet,  however  distuiguished  for  ardent 
American  feeling,  is,  nevertheless,  as  a  piece  of  law  logic,  quite  inconclu- 
sive. I  think,  as  might  be  said  of  other  compositions  on  the  same  subject, 
that  it  contains  passages  which  yield  all  that  is  contended  for  on  the  other 
aide."  Curtis,  Life  of  D.  Webster,  II,  p.  118.  This  interesting  passage  is 
omitted  in  the  copy  of  the  letter  in  the  Priv.  Corresp.  of  D.  Webster,  II,  p. 
124,  and  nothing  said  of  an  omission. 

* "  If  England  pushes  her  purpose  into  action,  we  shall  have  a  severe 
straggle  to  encounter,  and  the  sooner  and  the  more  vigorously  we  prepare 
for  it  the  better.  If  she  does  not,  we  shall  gain  by  our  exhibition  of  firm- 
ness, and  the  very  state  of  preparations  may  lead  her  to  recede.    But  per- 


CASs's    PAMPHLET.  489 

either  guilty  of  gross  exaggeration,  or  the  blood  rushed  to 
his  head  so  easily  that  he  was  completely  unfitted  for  a 
diplomatic  position  of  any  importance.  A  third  assumption 
18  possible,  and  it  is,  indeed,  the  right  one.  The  scheming 
political  "  log-roller,"  with  a  high  aim  at  the  object  of  his 
own  personal  ambition,  and  the  hot  temperament  of  the 
would-be-great  man  of  mediocre  endowments  and  mediocre 
education,  cooperated  to  give  such  a  form  to  the  effusions  of 
the  ardent  patriot  that  Adams's  hard  judgment  upon  them 
seems  scarcely  exaggerated. 

The  moral  pathos  of  the  pamphlet  accorded  badly  with 
its  inconsistent,  dishonest  statement  of  the  facts.  Any  one 
not  better  informed  would  have  obtained  from  the  whole  ex- 
position the  impression  that  the  United  States  had,  from  the 
first  and  uninterruptedly,  had  its  hand  on  the  hilt  of  the 
sword,  ready  to  appear  with  all  the  rigorism  paraded  by  the 
writer,  in  defense  of  the  position  which  they  now  thought 
well  to  assume.  This  impression  must  have  made  the  con- 
viction  expressed  at  the  close,  that  there  was  not  the  least 
hope  of  seeing  the  United  States  agree  to  any  compromise, 
seem  entirely  well  founded.'  But  the  facts  did  not  in  any  way 
justify  this  claim  to  uninterrupted  consistency  and  readiness 
to  defend  the  principle  at  all  hazards.  England  alleged  — 
and  not  without  reason  —  that  there  were  all  sorts  of  things 
before  the  door  of  the  United  States  for  them  to  sweep,  be- 
fore it  would  be  becoming  in  them  to  pass  so  harsh  a  judg- 

rait  me  to  press  upon  you  the  necessity  of  instant  and  extensive  arrange- 
ments for  offensive  and  defensive  war.  All  other  questions,  personal,  local 
and  political,  should  give  way  before  this  paramount  duty."  Dispatch  of 
the  15th  of  February,  1842.    NUes,  LXIV,  p.  70. 

'  •'  Most  sincerely  do  we  hope  that  Lord  Ashburton  carries  out  to  the 
American  government  some  modified  proposition  it  can  accept.  But  we 
freely  confess,  looking  to  the  pretensions  of  both  parties  and  knowing  the 
feelin','^  of  our  countrymen,  that  we  do  not  see  upon  what  middle  ground 
they  c»i  meet." 


490  Jackson's  administkatiox  — -  annexation  of  texas. 

ment  on  the  pretensions  of  others.^  But,  be  this  as  it  might, 
it  was  certain  that  there  was  a  time  when  they  had  consid- 
ered the  principles  of  the  cj[uintuple  treaty  to  be  very  well 
reconcilable  with  national  honor  and  national  interest;  and 
the  stipulations  of  the  quintuple  treaty  went  far  beyond 
what  England  now  wished  to  receive  from  them.  "When, 
during  Monroe's  administration,  England  had  negotiated  a 
convention  with  the  United  States  for  the  suppression  of  the 
slave  trade,  Adams  was  the  only  member  of  the  cabinet  who 
was  of  oijinion  that  not  the  slightest  concession  in  relation 
to  the  right  of  search  should  be  made.^  The  fact  was  well 
known  at  the  time,  and  a  Virginian  endeavored  to  tm'n  it  to 
account  in  the  presidential  election  of  1824,  against  Adams, 
by  accusing  him  of  being  an  opponent  of  the  suppression  of 
the  slave  trade.  Another  Yirginian,  Charles  Fenton  Mercer, 
was  the  chief  agitator  in  the  house  for  the  granting  of  the 
right  of  search,  and  saw  his  view  prevail  in  1823:'  only  nine 
votes  were  cast  against  his  resolution.^  As  the  senate  also 
agreed  to  it,  Adams  was  obliged  to  give  up  his  opposition  in 
the  cabinet,  and  Kush,  the  American  minister  in  London, 
received  instructions  which  accorded  with  the  resolutions  of 
congress.  Canning  left  it  to  Rush  to  make  the  draught  of 
the  convention,  and  signed  it  without  the  slightest  change.* 

•  "  ,  .  .  The  undersigned  can  at  once  refer  to  the  avowed  and  constant 
practice  of  the  United  States,  whose  cruisers,  especially  in  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  by  the  admission  of  their  public  journals,  are  notoriously  in  the 
habit  of  examining  all  suspicious  vessels,  whether  sailing  under  the  English 
flag  or  any  other."    Lord  Aberdeen  to  Mr.  Everett,  Niles,  LXll,  p.  119. 

* "  1  resisted  and  opposed  it  in  the  cabinet  with  all  my  power,  and, 
though  not  a  sbveholder  myself,  I  had  to  resist  the  slaveholding  members 
of  the  cabmet,  as  well  as  Mr.  Monroe  himself,  for  they  were  all  inclined  to 
concede  the  right."  Adams's  speech  of  the  14th  of  April,  1842,  in  the 
house  of  representatives.     Niles,  LXIl,  p.  120. 

»1.  c. 

*  "  When  he  made  his  proposal  to  Mr.  Canning,  Mr.  Canning's  reply 
van,  '  Draw  up  your  convention,  and  I  will  sign  it.'    Mr.  Rush  did  so;  and 


CASS's    PAMPHLET.  491 

When  the  convention  came  to  "Washington  to  be  ratified,  a 
revolution  in  party  affairs  had  taken  place  there.  The  house 
was  in  opposition  to  the  administration,  and  was  now  opposed 
to  the  convention  which  had  been  made  on  its  motion.  Tlie 
senate,  on  the  other  hand,  ratified  it  by  a  vote  of  twenty-nine 
against  thirteen;  and  the  leaders  of  the  democratic  party  and 
of  the  slavocracy,^  who,  to  the  extent  that  they  still  stood  on 
the  political  stage,  now  cried  loudest  against  England's  un- 
heard-of presumption,  voted  with  the  majority.  Tlie  altera- 
tions which  the  senate  had  proposed  were  not  immaterial, 
but  they  did  not  touch  the  principle  of  the  convention.  The 
convention  finally  fell  througli,  because  the  senate  would  not 
permit  the  rifjht  of  search  to  be  extended  to  the  coasts  "  of 
America;"  but  it  had  unconditionally  granted  it  in  respect 
to  the  coasts  of  Africa  and  the  "West  Indies.^ 

In  the  face  of  these  facts,  it  required,  indeed,  a  very  bold- 
fronted  man  to  protest  against  the  ratification  of  the  quin- 
tuple treaty.  The  protest  against  the  adoption  of  a  new  and 
important  provision  into  international  maritime  law,  without 
the  previous  assent  of  the  United  States,  was  entirely  empty, 
since  not  a  syllable  of  the  treaty  intimated  such  a  purpose. 
And  even  Cass  himself  asserted,  in  the  same  breath,  that  he 

Mr.  Canning,  without  the  slightest  alteration  whatever,  without  varying 
che  dot  of  an  t,  or  the  crossing  of  a  t,  did  afiBx  to  it  his  signature;  thus  as- 
senting to  our  terms,  in  our  own  language."    L  c. 

'  Branch  and  Brown  of  North  Carolina,  Benton,  Andrew  Jackson,  John- 
son of  Kentucky,  King  of  Alabama,  Holmes  of  Mississippi,  Hayne  of 
South  Carohna. 

*  The  cruisers  of  the  contracting  powers  on  the  coasts  mentioned  were 
authorized  "  to  detain,  examine,  capture, -and  deliver  over  for  trial  and  ad- 
judication, by  some  competent  tribunal,  of  whichever  of  the  two  countries 
•.t  shall  be  found  to  belong  to,  any  ship  or  vessel  concerned  in  tiie  illicit 
!a".iffic  of  slaves,  and  carrying  the  Bag  of  the  other,  or  owned  by  any  sub- 
jects or  citizens  of  either  of  the  two  contracting  parties,  except  when  in  the 
presence  of  a  ship  of  war  of  its  own  nation."  See  the  convention  of  the 
iSth  of  March,  1824.    Niles,  LXIV,  pp.  104,  105. 


492  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  tf.yah, 

could  not  consider  such  an  extension  possible.  In  order  to 
get  a  pretext  to  say  something  on  the  treaty  against  the 
French  government,  he  had  to  cite  the  correspondence  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  England,  with  which  the  other 
treaty  powers  had  evidently  not  had  the  lease  thing  to  do. 
He  arbitrarily  dragged  two  short  sentences  out  of  this  vol- 
uminous correspondence,  pointed  them  nicelv  for  his  pur- 
pose by  the  interpretation  he  put  on  them,  and  in  this  way 
reached  the  conclusion  that  the  ratification  of  the  treaty 
might  place  France  in  danger  of  a  conflict  with  the  United 
States.  A  diplomatic  note  of  protest,  showing  in  the  back- 
ground war  to  the  knife,  painted  in  proud  words,  was  never 
based  on  anything  more  aerial,  not  to  say  more  frivolous. 
But  besides  this,  Cass  was  here  guilty  of  the  same  want  of 
uprightness  which  had  characterized  his  sketch  of  the  history 
of  the  question.  Firmly  as  he  might  personally  be  con- 
vinced that  England  was  not  to  be  trusted  out  of  sight, 
when  he  undertook  to  enlighten  France,  from  the  records,  on 
the  disposition  and  the  intentions  of  England,  he  should  not 
have  passed  over  in  complete  silence  the  fact  that  England 
had  now  given  the  supplemental  assurance  that  the  disposi- 
tion and  intentions  ascribed  to  her  were  far  removed  from 
her.  Cass  might  not  know  the  wording  of  tlie  documents 
which  the  two  governments,  in  the  meantime,  had  exchanged 
with  one  another,  but  their  general  character  must  have  been 
known  to  him.  But  while  Cass  repeatedly  asserted  in  his 
protest  that  the  right  to  "  search "  ^  American  vessels  even 
in  times  of  peace  was  claimed  by  England,  Lord  Aberdeen 
declared  the  contrary  to  be  the  case  in  the  most  express 
terms:  she  claimed  only  the  "right  of  visitation"  —  a  right 
which  she  also  conceded  —  to  enable  her  to  ascertain  whether 

' "  Lord  Aberdeen  thus  states  the  ground  upon  whidi  rests  this  pre- 
tension to  search  American  vessels  in  time  of  peace."  "This  claim  of 
search,"  etc. 


POSITION  OF  ADAMS.  493 

suspicious  ships  carrying  the  American  flag  were  really  en- 
titled to  carry  it.  In  the  latter  case,  England  would  abstain 
from  all  molestation,  even  if  the  ships  were  slave  vessels; 
and  if  an  American  ship  suffered  in  any  way  from  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  right  of  visitation,  England  would  make  full 
compensation.' 

Adams,  who  still  lamented '  the  concessions  of  tlie  con- 
vention of  1824,  now  firmly  maintained  that,  absolutely,  the 
question  was  not  of  the  right  of  visitation;  in  his  opinion, 
there  was  only  one  question  that  presented  itself:  that  of 
"  the  support  and  perpetuation  of  the  African  slave  trade."' 

'  "  The  undersigned  again  renounces,  as  he  has  ah^ady  done  in  the  moat 
explicit  terms,  any  right  on  the  part  of  the  British  government  to  search 
American  vessels  in  time  of  peace.  The  right  of  search,  except  when 
specially  conceded  by  treaty,  is  a  piu^ly  beUigerent  right,  and  can  have  no 
existence  on  the  high  seas  during  peace.  The  undersigned  apprehends, 
however,  that  the  right  of  search  is  not  confined  to  the  verification  of  the 
nationaUty  of  the  vessel,  but  also  extends  to  the  object  of  the  voyage  and 
the  nature  of  the  cargo.  The  sole  purpose  of  the  British  cruisers  is  to 
ascertain  whether  the  vessels  they  meet  with  are  really  American  or  not. 
The  right  asserted  has,  in  truth,  no  resemblance  to  tlie  right  of  search 
either  in  principle  or  practice.  It  is  simply  a  right  to  satisfy  the  party 
who  has  a  legitimate  interest  in  knowing  the  truth,  that  the  vessel  actually 
is  what  her  colors  announce.  This  right  we  concede  as  freely  as  we  exer- 
cise. The  British  cruisers  are  not  instructed  to  detam  American  vessels 
under  any  circumstances  whatever;  on  the  contrary,  they  are  ordered  to 
abstain  from  all  interference  with  them,  be  they  slavers  or  otherwise  .  .  . 
if,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  caution,  an  error  should  be  committed,  and  any 
American  vessel  should  sufler  loss  and  iigury,  it  would  be  followed  by 
prompt  and  ample  reparation."  Lord  Aberdeen  to  Mr.  Everett,  Dec.  20, 
1841.    Niles.  LXIV,  p.  27. 

•  "  But,  as  to  the  right  of  search,  in  the  bitterness  of  my  soul,  I  say  it 
was  conceded  by  all  the  authorities  of  this  nation." 

•  "  She  [Great  Britain]  has  never  claimed  to  search  American  vessels,  no 
such  thing;  on  the  contrary,  she  has  explicitly  disclaimed  any  such  pre- 
tension, and  that  to  the  whole  extent  we  can  possibly  demand.  What  is 
it  we  do  demand?  Not  that  Great  Britain  should  disclaim  the  right  to 
search  American  vessels,  but  we  deny  to  her  the  right  to  visit  and  to  board 
purates  who  hoist  the  American  flag;  yes,  and  to  search  British  yeBsels,  too. 


494  Jackson's  admenistbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

This  was  not  a  saying  which  escaped  him  inadvertently  in  the 
heat  of  the  moment.  As  early  as  the  25th  of  January,  he 
had  preferred  the  double  charge  that  it  was  desired  to  in- 
crease the  fleet  for  the  better  protection  of  the  slave  traders, 
and  to  precipitate  the  Union  into  a  war  with  England  in 
order  to  defend  the  slave  trade.^ 

Adams  easily  saw  things  in  too  glaring  a  light,  and  fre- 
quently clothed  his  thought  in  the  very  strongest  expres- 
sions. But  in  the  background  of  these  words  coming  from 
such  a  mouth,  the  reasoning  of  the  Cass  pamphlet  appeared 
in  a  very  peculiar  light.  Yet  there  was  no  need  even  of 
this.  One  only  needed  to  look  at  the  reasoning  of  the 
pamphlet  in  its  own  light,  to  be  convinced  that  the  writer 
took  offense  at  the  end  contemplated  by  the  treaty,  and  did 
not  simply  consider  the  means  absolutely  objectionable, 
spite  of  the  laudable  end.  Cass,  indeed,  declared  himself 
an  opponent  "in  principle"  of  slavery;  but  his  "prayer" 
for  its  abolition  was  interlarded  in  a  very  marked  man 
ner  with  modifying  clauses.  His  conditions  were  that  its 
abolition  should  be  effected  not  only  justly  and  peaceably, 

that  have  been  declared  to  be  pirates  by  the  laws  of  nations — pirates  by 
the  laws  of  Great  Britain  —  pirates  by  the  laws  of  the  United  States.  Now, 
it  happens  that  behind  all  this  exceeding  great  zeal  against  the  right  of 
search  is  a  question  which  the  gentleman  took  care  not  to  bring  into  view 
—  and  that  is  the  support  and  perpetuation  of  the  African  slave  trade. 
That  is  the  real  question  between  the  ministers  of  America  and  Great 
Britain — whether  slave-traders,  pirates,  by  merely  hoisting  the  American 
flag,  shall  be  saved  from  capture."    NQes,  LXII,  p.  120. 

'  "  It  was  time  for  them  [the  population  of  the  free  states]  to  take  the 
alarm,  or  they  would  find  themselves  smuggled  into  a  war  for  the  protec- 
tion of  the  slave  trade,  and  that  the  most  absurd  and  false  principles  of  the 
laws  of  nations  had  been  asserted  by  our  minister  in  England  [Stevenson], 
aU  for  the  purpose  of  smuggling  this  country  into  a  war  wiili  that  govern- 
ment under  pretense  of  defense  against  her  aggressions.  ...  He  had 
read  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  the  navy,  and  seen  what  was  the  object 
of  this  home  squadron  —  that  it  was  for  furnishing  a  convoy  for  slave-trad- 
ing vessels! "    Ibid.,  LXI,  p.  360. 


CASS   ON   SLAVEBY.  495 

but  easily.  He  was  not  one  of  the  fanatics  who  would  not 
recoil  from  any  horror  to  reach  the  end  which  was  praise- 
worthy in  itself/  He,  therefore,  lauded  the  wisdom  of  the 
fathers  of  the  republic  who  had  not  required  the  states  to 
grant  any  power  in  this  question  to  the  government  of  the 
Union.  But  what  in  the  wide  world  had  all  this  to  do  with 
the  controversy  over  the  right  of  search,  and  with  the  quintu- 
ple treaty?  Who  was  there  that  thonght  of  attempting  the 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  the  United  States  by  "fire  and 
murder? "  Jf  any  sense  could  be  made  out  of  his  talk  in  this 
place,  Cass  must  have  considered  slavery  in  the  United  States 
imperilled  oy  the  quintuple  treaty.  Nay,  more,  such  an  im- 
perilling of  slavery  in  the  United  States  must  have  seemed  to 
him  to  be  a  great  injustice.  This  explains  why  his  laudation 
of  what  the  Union  had  done  and  was  still  doing  for  the  sup- 
pression of  slavery,  was  followed  by  the  emphatic  recalling  of 
the  fact  that  the  slave  trade  could  be  traced  back  to  the  times 
of  the  patriarch  Jacob.  Hence  it  was  that  the  emphatic  con- 
cession that  the  African  slave  trade  was  illegal,  according  to 
the  law  of  nations,  was  accompanied  by  the  still  more  em- 
phatic protest  against  the  allegation,  that  it  was  piracy  by 
the  law  of  nations;  while  a  prudent  silence  was  maintained 
on  the  fact  that,  at  least,  the  United  States  in  unison  with 
England,  had  declared  it  to  be  such.  For  this  reason  Cass 
lost  himself  in  a  general  critical  examination  of  slavery, 
declared  the  lot  of  the  American  slaves  to  be  better  than 
that  of  tlie  lowest  strata  of  society  in  Europe,  and  asserted 
that  it  was  steadily  getting  better,  under  the  influence  of  the 
patriarchal  character  of  slavery  in  the  United  States." 

'  "  But  we  would  not  carry  fire  and  devastation,  and  murder  and  ruin 
into  a  peaceful  community,  to  push  on  the  accomplishment  of  the  object." 

'  "  A  general  dispoeitaon  is  gaming  ground  to  improve  the  situation  of 
this  unfortunate  class  of  society.  .  .  .  But  after  ha\'ing  visited  the  three 
quarters  of  the  old  continent,  we  say  before  God  and  the  world,  that  we 


496    JAOKSOn's  ADMIOTSTRATION' — annexation  of  TEXAS. 

Tlie  commentary  to  these  last  assertions  was  the  unanimous 
declaration  of  the  southern  politicians,  and  of  the  south- 
ern press,  that  the  agitation  of  the  abolitionists  had  made  a 
great  intensification  of  the  severity  of  the  slave-code  unavoid- 
able; the  prohibition  of  emancipation  just  issued  by  South 
Carolina; '  the  new  laws  of  Mississippi,  which  decreed  the 
sale  of  free  negroes  for  the  most  frivolous  reasons;"  the  de- 
bates and  propositions  of  the  Maryland  convention  of  slave- 
holders at  Annapolis,  which  should  have  covered  the  face  of 
every  American  patriot  with  the  blush  of  shame  to  the  roots 
of  his  hair,'  etc.     But  it  was  a  matter  of  comparative  indif- 

have  seen  far  more,  and  more  frightful  misery,  since  we  landed  in  Europe, 
and  we  have  not  visited  Ireland  yet,  than  we  have  ever  seen  among  this 
class  of  people  in  the  United  States.  Whatever  may  be  said,  there  is  much 
of  the  patriai'chal  relation  between  the  southern  planter  and  the  slave." 

'  "  Among  the  acts  passed  by  the  legislature  at  its  late  session  was  one  to 
prevent  emancipation  of  slaves.  Any  will  or  bequest,  etc.,  to  that  eifect 
will  hereafter  be  null  and  void."    Niles,  XLI,  p.  320. 

'"  By  an  act  which  was  passed  at  the  last  session  of  the  Mississippi  legif- 
lature,  every  justice  in  the  state  is  authorized,  at  the  request  of  a  freeholder, 
to  cause  every  free  negro  to  give  security  in  the  sum  of  one  hundred  dollars 
for  his  good  behavior,  or  to  commit  him  to  jail,  and,  after  public  notice,  the 
sherilF  of  the  county  shall  sell  him.  Every  free  iiegro  is  forbidden  to  enter 
the  state;  and  if  one  such  is  found  having  emigrated  into  the  state  under  any 
pretense  whatever,  any  white  citizen  may  cause  him  to  be  punished  by  the 
sheriff,  with  thirty-nine  lashes;  and  if  he  does  not  immediately  thereafter 
remove,  he  is  to  be  sold."    Ibid.,  LXII,  p.  112. 

'  The  following  examples  will  suffice  as  a  characterization :  ' '  That  all  free 
negroes  shall  be  obliged  to  register  themselves  on  or  before  the  15th  of  July 
next,  and  every  twelve  months  hereafter,  in  the  office  of  the  clerk  of  the 
county,  and  no  certificate  of  freedom  of  an  older  date  shall  be  good.  .  .  . 
It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  orphans.'  court  of  the  several  counties  in  the  state 
and  city  of  Baltimore,  from  and  after  the  1st  of  January,  1844,  to  bind  out, 
at  the  age  of  eight  years,  the  children  of  all  free  negroes  then  in  the  state, 
to  serve  until  they  arrive  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  for  males,  and  eighteen 
for  females.  .  .  .  That  if  any  free  negro  who  may  have  a  license  from 
any  Christian  denomination,  either  to  preach  or  exhort,  shall  hold  or  attend 
any  meeting  prohibited  by  law,  he  shall  for  the  first  offense  be  subject  to  a 
pne  and  imprisonment,  and  for  the  second  offense  be  sold  out  of  the  state." 


CAJSS'S    PAMPHLET.  497 

fercnce  how  thickly  or  thiuly  Cass  covered  over  the  dark 
picture  with  his  rouge.  The  most  material  thing  was  the 
fact  itself  that  an  ambassador  of  the  United  States,  belong- 
ing to  the  free  north,  of  his  own  accx^rd,  in  respect  to  a  great 
international  question,  and  in  opposition  to  the  humanitarian 
efforts  of  the  European  powcre,  set  himself  np  as  the  de- 
fender, if  not  directly  of  slavery,  of  the  slavocracy,  and 
measured  the  value  of  personal  liberty  by  the  quantity  and 
the  pleasantness  of  the  taste  of  the  broth  in  the  soup- pot 

The  administration  had  subsequently  approved  the  pro- 
test and  extolled  the  patriotism  of  the  ambassador,  but  his 
.argnraeut  did  not,  by  any  means,  seem  cogent  enough  to 
permit  the  American  flag,  in  defiance  of  the  civilized  world, 
to  remain  a  free  passport  for  the  slave  trade.  Cass,  indeed, 
said  that  the  English  cruisers  were  not  prevented  from  stop- 
ping such  ships  as  unrightfully  carried  the  American  flag. 
Certainly  not;  they  were  simply  deprived  of  the  only  means 
by  which  it  could  be  discovered  whether  this  was  the  case  or 
not.  Even  slaveholders  were  ashamed  to  make  use  of  such 
sophistry.  The  weightiest  authority  among  them,  Calhoun, 
admitted  that  the  slaveholders  did  not  draw  this  fine  dis- 
tinction, but,  in  accordance  with  the  English  view,  considered 
t!ic  latter  a  protection  quite  as  ample  as  the  former.* 

The  administration  admitted  not  only  these  facts  tacitly, 

In  addition  to  this,  the  following  was  moved  and  adopted:  "  With  a  pro- 
vision that  after  the  period  of  banishment  or  sale  has  expired,  the  said 
negro  shall  not  be  permitted  to  return  to  this  state,  and  that  in  case  of 
doing  so,  such  negn:x)es  shall  be  Uable  to  be  sold  as  slaves  for  Ufe,  beyond 
the  Umits  of  this  state."    See  ibid.,  LXI,  pp.  322,  323,  a56-358. 

'  "  The  influence  and  efforts  of  the  civihzed  world  were  directed  against 
it  [the  slave  tradej  —  and  that,  too,  under  our  lead  at  the  commencement; 
and  with  such  success  as  to  compel  vessels  engaged  in  it  to  take  shelter, 
almost  exclusively,  under  the  fraudulent  use  of  our  flag.  To  permit  such 
a  state  of  things  to  continue,  could  not  but  deeply  impeach  our  honor,  and 
turn  the  sympathy  of  the  world  against  us."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XI V,  p.  583 
'62 


498  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  tkxas. 

but  also  showed  by  its  action  that,  in  its  opinion,  accord- 
ing to  the  moral  convictions  of  European  countries,  some 
kind  of  satisfaction  could  no  longer  be  refused.  But,  at 
the  same  time,  it  wished  to  avoid  defining  its  position  on  the 
question  of  maritime  law  in  any  way,  because  its  growth  from 
a  medium  power  to  a  great  power  might  make  tlie  surrender, 
to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  of  the  point  of  view  hitherto  rep- 
resented by  the  Union,  desirable.  It  seemed  to  attain  both 
ends  at  the  same  time  by  the  mediating  proposition,  that  the 
question  of  principle  should  be  practically  dropped  at  that 
time,  and  tliat  the  two  powers,  England  and  the  United 
States,  should  obligate  themselves  by  treaty  to  maintain  a 
squadron  of  a  certain  strength  on  the  African  coast  for  the 
purpose  —  independently  of  one  another,  indeed,  but  with 
vigor  and  harmony  —  of  accomplishing  the  task  of  suppress- 
ing the  slave  trade.^  These  propositions  constituted  the  ma- 
terial contents  of  the  provisional  settlement  agreed  upon 
in  relation  to  this  question  in  the  treaty  made  at  Washing- 
ton on  the  9th  of  August,  1842.* 

'  Mr.  Webster  to  Mr.  Everett,  April  26,  1842:  "  Our  position  in  respect 
to  these  maritime  questions  is  peculiar.  Hitherto,  we  have  been  on  the 
gide  of  the  neutral,  and  the  minor  naval  powers,  always  most  forward  in 
contending  for  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  in  the  utmost  latitude  of  that  free- 
dom. But  we  are  in  the  progress  of  change.  We  are  no  longer  a  minor 
commercial  power,  nor  do  we  know  that  we  have  any  particular  exemption 
from  war,  if  war  should  again  break  out.  We  see  no  necessity,  then,  of 
being  in  haste  to  do  that  which  our  political  men  sometimes  call  '  defining 
our  position.'  To  avoid  all  this,  and  to  escape  the  necessity  of  mingling 
ourselves,  at  present,  in  the  discussions  now  so  rife  in  Europe,  I  have  pro- 
posed to  Lord  Ashburton,  to  come  to  an  agreement,  that  England  and  the 
United  States  shall  maintain,  for  a  limited  time,  each  an  independent 
gquadron  on  the  coast  of  Africa,  comprising  such  a  number  of  vessels  and 
of  such  force  as  may  be  agreed  on,  with  instructions  to  their  commanders 
respectively  to  act  in  concert,  so  far  as  may  be  necessary,  in  order  that  no 
slave-ship,  under  whatever  flag  she  may  sail,  shall  be  free  from  visitation 
and  search."    Webst.'s  Priv.  Corresp.,  II,  pp.  124,  125. 

« Stat,  at  L.,  VIII,  p.  576;  V,  art.  VIII  and  IX. 


CASS's    PAMPHLET.  499 

The  senate  ratified  the  treaty,  but  the  doctors  who  so  skill- 
fully plastered  the  rupture  instead  of  trying  to  heal  it,  were 
compelled  to  }>ermit  themselves  to  be  told  many  a  bitter 
truth.  If,  as  Adams  expressed  himself,  Calhoun  advocated 
the  "ticklish  truce," ^  he  did  so  certainly  only  because  he 
recognized  that  such  a  truce  was  the  utmost  that  could  be 
attained.  But  once  such  a  step  was  retraced,  the  lost  ground 
could  never  be  regained;  and  further  retrogression  was  in- 
evitable. Cass  had  i;i  vain  thrown  himself  into  the  breach 
for  the  south.  The  public  opinion  of  Europe  and  of  the 
free  states  of  the  Union  had  again  badly  defeated  the  slav- 
ocracy.  The  Union  had  entered  into  a  treaty  obligation  in 
relation  to  a  European  power,  by  which  it  condemned  its 
own  course  of  action  at  home  in  the  severest  manner.  Was 
it  not  plain  mockery  to  be  obliged  to  keep  a  fleet  on  the 
coast  of  Africa  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade,  while 
the  slavocracy  declared  the  Union  to  be  warranted  and, 
under  certain  circumstances,  bound  in  duty  to  wage  a  war 
ao^inst  the  same  England  for  the  reason  that  it  recognized 
no  sort  of  obligation  to  the  unfortunate  American  slave- 
owners whose  slaves  it  had  set  at  liberty  when  wind  and 
weather,  or  even  a  successful  uprising  of  the  slaves  them- 
selves, had  brought  such  a  "  legal "  cargo  of  human  flesh  into 

> "  On  the  subject  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade,  the  negotiation  itself 
was  a  scapinade,  a  struggle  between  the  plenipotentiaries  to  outwit  each 
other,  and  to  circumvent  both  countiies  by  a  slippery  compromise  between 
freedom  and  slavery.  Calhoun  crows  about  his  success  in  imposing  his 
own  bastard  law  of  nations  upon  the  senate  by  his  preposterous  resolutions 
(the  enterprise  resolutions  of  the  4th  of  March,  1840),  and  chuckles  at 
Webster's  appealing  to  those  resolutions  now,  after  dodging  from  the  duty 
of  refuting  and  confounding  them  then.  Calhoun  concludes,  upon  the 
whole,  to  put  up  with  the  ticklish  truce  patched  up  between  the  treaty  and 
the  correspondence;  and  this  was  what,  in  fact,  reconciled  him  to  the  rati- 
fication. There  is  a  temperance  in  his  manner  obviously  aimmg  to  concil- 
iate the  northern  political  sopranos,  who  abhor  slavery  and  help  to  forge 
fetters  for  the  slave."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  285. 


500   JAOKSON's  administration annexation  of  TEXA8. 

one  of  her  harbors?  "Was  it  not  plain  mockery  to  be  obliged 
to  do  anything  at  all  for  the  suppression  of  the  African  slave 
trade,  while  tlie  slavocracy  unanimously  spoke  of  the  bless- 
ings which  had  fallen  to  the  lot  of  the  "  benighted  sons  of 
Africa  "  by  their  transfer  into  the  Christian  «*rest?  There 
was  no  need  of  the  "fanatics"  of  the  north  to  awaken  men 
to  an  understanding  of  this  side  of  the  Ashburton  treaty. 
Benton's  rage  and  pain  were  too  overpowering  to  j)erniit 
him  to  follow  Calhoun's  example  and  look  on  the  wicked 
game  with  as  pleasant  a  face  as  possible,  Ko  abolitionist 
would  have  been  able  to  show  the  slavocracy  how  ridiculous 
a  figure  it  cut  as  effectually  as  did  the  furious  slaveholder.* 
The  history  of  the  slavery  question  during  Tyler's  admin- 
istration, 80  far  as  we  have  followed  it  up  to  this  time,  shows 
us  the  power  of  the  slavocracy  on  the  decline.     Hence  the 

' "  What  if  the  emperor  of  Brazil,  boy  as  he  is;  or  the  queen  of  Spain, 
child  as  she  is;  or  the  queen  of  Portugal,  lady  as  she  is,  should  give  oui 
minister  advice  to  return  home  and  fi-oe  his  own  country  fi-om  slaves  be- 
fore he  went  about  to  close  the  markets  of  the  wdrld  against  them  ?  True, 
there  is  a  difference  between  purchasing  and  the  purchased.  The  intellect 
can  detect  the  diftierence.  But  still,  it  is  a  case  for  a  sarcasm  and  for  an 
insult;  and  the  American  minister  who  should  go  upon  these  expeditions 
should  look  out  for  answers  very  different  from  what  may  be  given  to  the 
representative  of  Great  Britain.  She,  having  liberated  her  own  slaves, 
may  stand  up  and  speak.  But  how  will  it  be  with  the  American  minister, 
when  he  commences  rehearsing  his  remonstrance  ?  This  business  of  remon- 
strating is  a  delicate  operation  between  individuals;  more  so  when  a  sover- 
eign is  in  the  case;  and  becomes  exceedingly  critical  when  the  remonstrant 
is  about  in  the  condition  himself  which  he  attacks  in  others.  Among  all  the 
strange  features  in  the  comedy  of  en-ors  which  has  ended  in  this  treaty, 
that  of  sending  American  ministers  abroad  to  close  the  mai-kets  of  the 
world  against  the  slave-trade  is  the  most  striking.  Not  content  with  the 
expenses,  loss  of  life  and  political  entanglements  of  this  alliance,  we  must 
electioneer  for  insults,  and  send  ministers  abroad  to  receive,  pocket  and 
bring  them  home.  .  .  .  What  madness  and  foUy!  lias  Don 
Quixote  come  to  life  and  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  our  goveniment, 
and  taken  the  negroes  of  Africa,  instead  of  the  damsels  of  Spain,  for  the 
objects  of  his  chivalrous  protection?  "    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIV,  p.  551. 


THE   SLA.VOCRACT   ALASMED.  501 

view  which  originated,  under  the  pressure  of  later  events, 
tliat  its  supremacy  was  advancing  rapidly  and  steadily,  needs 
correction  greatly.  This  view  is  not  entirely  wrong,  but  it 
sees  only  one  side  of  things,  A  great  part  of  the  northern 
politicians  bow  lower  under  the  yoke,  but  between  them  and 
the  best  portion  of  the  northern  population,  a  split  has  been 
made,  which  grows  considerably  larger.  The  number  of 
those  politicians  was  large  enough  to  give  the  south,  as  a  rule, 
the  majority  in  congress  when  the  slaveholding  interest 
bridged  over  the  party -gap  between  its  representatives.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  part  of  the  population  of  the  northern 
states  who  emancipated  themselves  from  the  slavocracy  and 
from  their  own  politicians,  was  strong  enough  already  not 
only  to  exercise  a  compelling  pressure  in  some  questions  on 
a  sufficient  number  of  the  northern  serviles  in  congress,  but 
also  to  drive  a  wedge  here  and  there  into  the  representation 
of  the  south.  Moreover  the  number  of  districts  in  the  free 
states  which  adopted  the  let-us-alone  programme  of  the  south 
grew  slowly.  But  lamentably  small  as  was  the  group  of 
those  in  congress  who,  on  every  occasion,  dared  to  call  the 
child  by  the  right  name,  who  contemptuously  declined  the 
challenges  of  the  southern  brawlers  to  fight  a  duel,  and  who 
did  not  wince  when,  in  the  course  of  debate,  hands  were  seen 
to  grasp  the  bowie-knife,  and  revolvers  were  cocked  —  it 
still  was  growing.  In  a  word,  the  proof  that  the  union 
with  slavery  had  not  been  able  to  emasculate  the  north,  and 
that  it  awakened  more  and  mora  to  the  recognition  of  its 
rights  and  duties,  kept  accumulating. 

The  south  contributed  its  share  to  this.  About  ten  years 
had  elapsed  since  Harrison  Grey  Otis  had  written:  The  tide 
is  all  in  one  direction.  Now  the  waters  were  streaming 
back.  If  they  attained  the  same  power  with  which  thej'  had 
then  struck  against  rising  abolitionism,  all  was  over  with  the 
rule  of  the  slavocracy.     The  slavocracy  felt  this,  and  with 


502  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

convulsive  efforts,  it  sought  to  turn  back  the  rudder  in  the 
old  direction.  The  violent  brutality  of  its  appearance  in 
congress  reached  its  zenith  during  these  years.  Provoking 
thumps,  fist-blows,  the  flourishing  of  weapons  bade  fair  to 
become  the  inevitable  spice  of  legislative  action.  Again 
and  again,  Adams  repeated  in  his  diary,  the  prayer  for 
peace  and  cahnness  in  battle.  The  granting  of  the  prayer 
would  have  been  almost  a  miracle,  even  if  he  had  been  a  lamb 
by  nature.  The  provocations  must  have  been  insupportable 
to  all  those  in  whom  the  feeling  of  individual  dignity  and  of 
the  dignity  of  human  nature  was  not  entirely  drowned  in 
the  "milk  of  pious  thought."  The  southern  extremists  now 
scarcely  spoke  except  in  the  tone  of  the  master,  and  of  a 
master  such  as  was  necessarily  formed  in  a  slavocracy  ac- 
cording to  Jefferson's  masterly  delineation,  from  his  nursery 
years  up.  Their  passion  could  not  bear  the  least  provoca- 
tion, and  they  began  to  consider  the  art  of  persuasion 
unworthy  of  them;  imperious  demands,  audacious  threats, 
wild  abuse,  the  tone  of  the  voice,  the  glance  of  the  eye,  every 
motion  of  the  arm  —  all  were  only  variations  of  the  one 
theme:  sirrah,  do  not  forget  your  place,  and  your  damned 
duty  and  obligation! 

How,  under  these  circumstances,  could  the  isolated  defeats 
of  the  slavocracy  have  made,  on  contemporaries  and  especi- 
ally on  fellow-actors,  the  impression  of  great  victories  of  the 
principles  of  liberty?  We  are  able  to  understand  their  mean- 
ing, but  to  them  they  must  have  seemed  only  as  the  repulse 
of  an  attack  at  a  few  points,  while  the  enemy,  everywhere 
else,  was  advancing.  In  this  point  or  in  that,  the  south  became 
more  cautious  and  wise  by  the  defeats  which  it  had  suffered, 
but  these  had  not  made  it  grow  faint-hearted.  It  was  per- 
fectly conscious  of  the  power  it  still  possessed,  and  its  defeats 
had  only  strengthened  its  resolution  to  assert  that  power  at 
all  hazards,  and  made  it  clearer  to  it,  that  to  assert  that 


OHAEAOTEB  OF  THE  DEMOCEAOT.  503 

power  was  necessary  to  increase  it,  in  the  real  sense  of  the 
word.  And  this  it  could  now  do  if  it  understood  how  to 
turn  the  moment  to  advantafje. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  attempt  to  discredit  the 
whio^s  in  the  south  as  abolitionists.  Absurd  as  the  exagorer- 
ation  was,  it  was,  after  all,  only  an  exaggeration.  On  the 
whole,  the  slavocracy  could  not,  by  any  means,  count  on 
thera  to  the  extent  that  it  could  on  the  democrats.  Even 
Jefferson  had  called  "  the  democracy  of  the  north  the  nat- 
ural ally  of  the  south,"  and  the  south  now  emphatically 
reminded  the  northern  democrats  of  the  prophetic  saying,^ 
which  it  had,  from  the  first,  known  how  to  fulfill.  This  alli- 
ance lay  in  the  nature  of  the  party.  Even  the  democrats' 
fundamental  view  of  the  political  (staatlich)  nature  of  the 
Union  directed  the  slavocracy  towards  them  chiefly.  The 
more  pointedly,  in  theory,  the  confederate  character  of  the 
Union  was  brought  into  view,  the  more  difficult  did  it  be- 
come, in  practice,  to  resist  the  pretensions  of  the  south.  If 
it  demanded  that  anything  should  be  done,  it  could  almost 
always  appeal  with  success  to  the  national  feeling,  because 
the  national  intergrowth  of  material  interests  had  advanced 
so  far  that  the  Union  seemed  in  the  direct  feeling  of  the 
whole  people,  and  especially  of  the  northern  population,  not 
as  a  confederation,  but  as  a  rather  compact  federal  state.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  contested  the  power  of  the  government 
of  the  Union,  it  could  draw  the  democrats  after  it  mostly  by 
the  rope  of  state-sovereignty.  In  addition  to  this,  there  was 
the  peculiar  inclination  of  these  antitheses  to  one  another. 
Those  democrats  of  the  north  who,  with  all  the  honesty  of 
incapacity  for  political  thought,  demanded,  most  uncondi- 
tionally, the  carrying  into  practice  of  the  democratic  princi- 
ple, agreed  also,  in  the  most  absolute  and  honest  conviction, 
with  the  slaveholders,  that  it  was  obvious  that  none  of  their 

'Niles,  LXn,p.219. 


504  Jackson's  ADSiLNiSTBATioif  —  aitntsxation  of  texas. 

"  self-evident  principles  "  had  any  application  to  neo-roes. 
The  radical  democrat  is,  as  a  rule,  an  aristocrat  so  arroo-ant 
and  so  intolerant  that  only  the  slaveholder  can  be  considered 
his  peer  in  this  respect.  Democrats  of  the  first  water  of  this 
land  are,  indeed,  a  rarity  even  to-day,  in  the  United  States; 
but  they  had,  at  that  early  day,  a  large  class  which  furnished 
almost  as  good  material  for  demagogues  of  every  degree  and 
rank.  Its  very  name  drew  the  greatest  part  of  the  natural- 
ized citizens  to  the  democratic  party.  How  were  these 
Europeans  to  attain  to  a  half-way  correct  understanding  of 
the  nature  and  meaning  of  the  slavery  question?  The 
number  of  those  among  them  who  had  the  education 
necessary  to  do  this  was  evanescently  small.  Scarcely 
one  of  them  knew  how  and  why  the  state  of  things  had 
come  to  be  what  it  was.  All  were  eno^aored,  to  the 
fullest,  by  the  unavoidable  necessity  of  making  a  live- 
lihood. What  tune  is  there  to  which  a  skillful  musician 
might  not  have  made  these  people  dance?  The  ideas  and 
prejudices  brought  over  by  them  from  Europe  were  harped  on, 
and  a  watchword  was  thrown  in  here  and  there,  as  an  always 
effective  trumpet-blast;  a  cheap  compliment  was  whispered 
before  election  day  into  the  ear  of  the  really  despised  pariah, 
and  the  herd  leaped  as  happy  and  thoughtless  as  a  flock  of 
sheep.  Many  a  revolutionist  of  1848  whom  the  reaction 
liad  driven  to  America,  distinctly  remembers  yet  with  what 
stark,  almost  dreadful  astonishment,  his  wise  German  coun- 
trymen looked  at  him  when  he  declared  that  he  preferred 
the  whi<rs  to  the  democrats.  And  then  there  were  the  com- 
pact  crowds  of  the  much  more  numerous  Irish,  whom  the 
tyranny  of  England,  extending  over  several  centuries,  had 
kneaded  into  clay  softer  and  more  plastic  than  had  ever  be- 
fore fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  demagogue.  Only  the 
church  could  have  kept  these  hot-blooded,  willing  and  de- 
voted children,  with  their  utter  absence  of  education,  and 


Douglas's  kepobt.  505 

tliuir  coarseness,  which  often  amounted  to  brutalizatiou, 
from  being  used  by  the  dregs  of  the  native  politicians  as  a 
battering  ram  against  tlie  foundations  of  the  healthy  Ameri- 
can democracy.  But  what  attitude  the  Catholic  church  as- 
f.umed  towards  the  slavery  question,  we  have  already  heard 
fi-om  the  mouth  of  Brownson,  the  greatest  Catholic  publicist 
of  the  Union.  It  had  not  escaped  the  sharp  eye  of  Yan 
Buren  of  what  value  it  would  be  to  the  political  "  machine  " 
to  control,  here  and  there,  in  the  larger  cities  of  the  Union,  a 
blindly  devoted  bodyguard'  made  up  of  such  elements;  and 
the  lessons  of  its  successes  have  never  been  forgotten  by  the 
democratic  politicians. 

The  democrats  had  now  again  a  preponderance  in  con- 
gress, and  they  immediately  showed,  in  the  most  striking 
manner,  how  little  their  defeat  in  1840  had  tauijht  them  to 
have  a  little  more  regard  for  law,  right  and  decency,  where 
these  came  into  collision  with  the  interest  of  the  party.  A 
law  of  the  25th  of  June,  1842,  had  provided  that  all  states 
which  sent  more  than  one  representative  to  the  house  of 
representatives  should  be  divided  into  as  many  districts  as 
they  had  representatives  in  the  house  of  representatives,  and 
that  each   district  should  choose  a  representative.'    New 

'  J.  A.  Hamilton  to  President  Harrison,  March  9,  1811 :  "  I  know  that 
it  was  from  the  beginning  a  part  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  policy  to  draw  to  his 
support  the  Catholics  of  this  country  through  their  priesta  here,  who  were 
to  be  operakd  upon  by  the  head  of  the  church  abroad.  I  say  this  with 
perfect  confidence;  and  most  striking  events  of  the  last  election  proved  how 
successful  he  had  been.  This  was  in  truth  the  last  card  upon  which  his 
friends  in  this  state  relied,  .  .  .  and  but  for  the  great  changes  among 
the  people  of  the  country,  it  would  have  been  successfully  played.  You 
will  recollect  that  the  first  diplomatic  communication  ever  made  to  the 
papal  see  was  by  Mr.  Van  Buren  as  secretary  of  state;  and  that  our  consul 
at  Rome,  Signor  Chicinani,  who  had  been  such  for  a  great  number  of 
years,  was  removed  to  give  place  to  a  young  American  who  had  married  an 
Italian  woman.  This  change  was  not  made  to  promote  the  interests  of 
the  pei-son  appointed."    Reminiscences  of  J.  A.  Hamilton,  p.  314. 

»Stat.  atL.,V,  p.  491. 


506  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Hampshire,  Georgia,  Mississippi  and  Missouri  did  not  con- 
sider themselves  obligad  to  pay  any  attention  to  this  law, 
and,  according  to  their  old  custom,  elected  all  their  repre- 
sentatives in  a  general  election.  These  elections  were  con- 
tested and  referred  to  the  committee  on  elections  to  report 
on.  The  question  of  law  was  so  simple  that  it  was  scarcely 
possible  that  there  should  be  two  opinions  on  it.  The  con- 
stitution left  it  to  the  state  legislatures  to  provide  for  the 
time,  place  and  manner  of  the  election  of  senators  and  rep- 
resentatives, but  gave  congress  the  right  to  alter  these  pro- 
visions by  law,  and  even  to  establish  such  provisions  itself 
except  in  relation  to  the  place  of  the  election  of  senators.^ 
Yet  the  majority  of  the  committee  was  not  able  to  discover 
any  authorization  for  the  law  of  the  25th  of  June.  The 
writer  of  the  report,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois,  who, 
on  this  occasion,  made  the  brilliant  debut  of  his  grand  dem- 
agogical career  on  the  national  stage,  endeavored  to  prove 
its  invalidity,  for  the  reason  that  congress  had  not  also  pre- 
scribed when  and  how  the  division  into  districts  was  to  be 
made.^  Congress,  he  claimed,  was  obliged  either  to  let  the 
power  granted  to  it  rest  entirely  or  to  exercise  it  to  its  fullest 
extent.  People  permitted  such  absurdities  to  be  served  up 
to  them,  with  the  appearance  of  deep  wisdom,  as  constitu- 
tional law.' 

The  other  part  of  Douglas's  reasoning  was  apparently  not 
without  weight.  He  claimed  that  the  right  in  question  was 
granted  to  congress  only  conditionally,  and  sought  to  demon- 
strate this  from  the  intention  of  the  legislator.  He  appealed 
here  to  the  declarations  made  in  the  convention  at  Philadel- 
phia and  by  the  Federalist^  that  the  granting  of  the  right  was 

'  Art.  I,  sec.  4,  par.  1. 

5  See  his  report  of  the  22d  of  January,  1844,  NUes,  LXV.,  pp.  393-395. 
*The  "Democratic  Review,"  August,  1842,  p.  208,  calls  the  law  "a 
measure  of  high-handed  federal  usurpation." 


Douglas's  repoet.  507 

necessary  because  the  means  necessary  to  its  self-preservation 
had  to  be  given  to  every  government.  How  this  was  to  be 
understood,  appeared  from  tlie  demand  made  by  seven  states* 
tit  the  time  of  ratification,  that  an  amendment  should  be 
passed  declaring  that  this  power  was  granted  to  congress 
only  when  the  states  refused  to  make,  or  were  kept  from 
making,  the  necessary  provisions.  But  such  an  amendment 
had  not  been  adopted,  and  in  the  wording  of  the  constitu- 
tional provision,  not  the  least  intimation  was  to  be  found  of 
a  conditional  grant.  Spite  of  these  historical  facts,  there- 
fore, congress  was  not  under  the  least  moral  obligation  to 
consider  that  the  intention  of  the  legislator  was  any  more 
than  that  it  should  not  make  use  of  this  right  without  good 
reasons.  But  there  were  the  best  of  reasons  for  it  now,  and 
if  congress  could  be  rightly  blamed  for  anything,  it  could 
only  be  for  not  having  used  its  power  before.  That  the  vir- 
tue of  parties  was  not  sufficient  to  resist  the  temptation  to 
support  their  supremacy  by  amending  the  election  laws  ac- 
cording to  the  wants  of  the  moment,  had  been  frequently 
observed  already.'  Moreover,  the  general  introduction  of 
district  elections  was  absolutely  necessary,  if  the  principle  of 
the  constitution,  in  relation  to  the  difference  between  the 
composition  of  the  senate  and  of  the  house  of  representatives 
should  be  preserved  unabridged.  To  the  extent  that  the 
members  of  the  house  of  representatives  were  chosen  at  gen- 
eral elections,  to  that  extent  the  house  acquired  the  charac- 
ter, in  this  respect,  of  a  states-house  (Staatenhaus)  which 

'  Virginia,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  New  York,  Rhode  Island 
and  the  two  Carolinas. 

* "  But  the  state  legislatures  might  [as  many  of  them  have]  abuse  this 
power.  The  general  ticket  has  often  been  resorted  to;  districts  to  eleet 
two,  three,  and  four  members,  have  been  frequently  formed;  and  even  the 
constituent  parts  of  a  single  district  have  been  changed — and  all  to  give 
an  undue  advantage  to  the  dominant  faction  in  different  legislatures." 
Report  of  the  minority  of  the  committee.    Niles,  LXV,  p.  412. 


508  Jackson's  administjsation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

according  to  the  view  of  the  constitution,  only  the  senate, 
in  contradistinction  to  the  popular  house,  the  house  of 
the  representatives  of  the  population,  should  possess.  And 
besides,  general  elections  were  in  conflict  with  the  funda- 
mental democratic  principle  of  the  rule  of  the  majority. 
Inasmuch  as  that  principle  was  applied  to  the  population 
of  the  several  states,  not  divided  into  groups,  but  in  their 
entirety,  it  afforded  the  temjiting  possibility  of  playing 
the  supremacy  of  the  Union  into  the  hands  of  a  small 
minority.^ 

All  this  was  not  denied,  but  it  could  alter  the  decisive 
question  in  nothing,  that  all  the  representatives  elected  by  the 
states  named  except  two  were  democrats.  The  majority  of 
the  committee  moved  that  the  provision  in  question  of  tlie  law 
of  the  25th  of  June,  should  be  declared  not  a  constitution- 
ally binding  law,  and  that  the  elections  should  be  recognized 
as  valid.  To  whom  the  house  should  assign  the  right  to  a 
seat  on  its  floor,  was  a  matter which  belonged  entirely  to  it; 
but  it  was  plain  that  the  right  of  the  house  of  representatives 
to  decide  concerning  the  binding  force  and  the  constitution- 
ality of  the  existing  laws  was  entirely  new.  If  one  brandi 
of  the  legislative  power  itself  treated  tlie  laws  in  this  way, 
the  respect  for  them  must,  indeed,  have  become  part  of  the 
flesh  and  blood  of  the  people,  if  the  supremacy  of  law  re- 

'  "  It  could  be  demonstrated  .  .  .  that,  by  the  general  ticket,  six  of 
the  largest  states  would  elect  one  hundred  and  nineteen  members,  and  seven 
of  tlie  free  state  one  hundred  and  thirteen  members  of  the  present  house, 
and  thus  but  httle  more  than  one-half  of  their  votes,  forming  about  one- 
fourth  of  the  freemen  of  the  United  States,  would  wield  the  popular  branch 
of  the  government;  that  the  general  ticket  would  give  the  selection  of  can- 
didates and  thus  the  election,  in  fact,  into  the  hands  of  a  few  active,  for- 
ward and  bold  spirits,  and  the  people  would  only  have  the  privilege  of 
ratifying  their  caucus  decrees;  that  this  mode  in  ti'uth  does  not  give  a  rep- 
resentation of  the  people,  but  only  of  state  majorities,  and  silences  the 
voice  of  all  minorities,  though  in  number  barely  distinguishable  from  the 
dominant  majority.''    L  c. 


ttler'b  inattgueal  address.  509 

mained  more  than  a  name.  But  the  deraocracta  had  the 
power,  and  no  other  argument  availed  in  the  face  of  this 
one.  The  house  not  only  recognized  the  elections,  but  struck 
the  protest  of  the  whigs  against  them  from  its  journal.^ 

If  the  democratic  politicians  did  not  recoil  from  prostitut- 
ing the  legislative  power,  and  with  it  themselves,  to  this  ex- 
tent, the  worst  had  to  be  expected  in  those  respects  in 
which  the  people  had  long  been  accustomed  to  the  greatest 
]^arty-terrorisra.  But  they  had  no  power  over  the  most 
efficient  means  to  attain  again  to  the  complete  possession  of 
the  supremacy,  spite  of  their  majority  in  congress:  the 
"  patronage  "  of  the  government  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
president  who  was  sitting  between  the  two  stools.  But  if 
they  had  no  control  over  the  fodder-box,  it  weis  for  them  to 
say  whether  they  would  order  all  others  away  from  it. 
Tyler  would  have  done  this  most  cheerfully,  but  they  were 
too  wise  to  enter  into  the  unequal  trade.  Tliey  were  willing 
to  have  patience  vet  a  little  longer,  provided  only,  the  real 
whio^  were  shown  to  the  door.  The  offices  were  a  dansrer- 
ous  weapon  only  in  the  hands  of  an  organized  party;  and  a 
purely  personal  following  of  the  president  was  not  such  as 
to  inspire  fear,  even  by  the  possession  of  power.  But  Tyler, 
of  his  own  motion,  proceeded  to  thin  out  tlie  wliigs  as 
thoroughly  as  any  democrat  could  wish. 

Tyler,  in  his  inaugural  address,  had  spoken  exhaustively 
on  the  wild  management  of  government  patronage  and  its 
evil  consequences  to  the  whole  political  life  of  the  nation, 
and  declared  "  a  permanent  and  radical  change  "  to  be  neces- 
sary. No  faitbful  and  honest  official  should  be  removed  by 
him  unless  he  made  use  of  his  office  for  party  purposes. 
Tiiis  last  offense  he  had  promised  to  punish  in  those  ap- 
pointed by  himself  just  as  severely  by  dismissal,  as  he  would 
in  those  whom  he  had  found  in  office.'    This  was  Harrison's 

•  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  136.  »State8m.'B  Man.,  II,  p.  1338. 


510  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

programme,  only  more  pointedly  framed.  And  if  we  can 
attach  full  faith  to  the  words  of  the  president,  the  quarrel 
with  the  whigs  had  not  shaken  his  good  resolutions  in  the 
least.  The  first  annual  message  repeated  the  promises  made, 
in  the  most  emphatic  manner.  If,  despite  this,  the  number 
of  dismissals  was  from  the  first  not  small,  it  did  not  follow 
from  that,  of  itself,  that  Tyler  did  not  intend  to  keep  his 
word.  He  had  expressly  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
many  ofiicials  did  not  fulfill  the  condition  made,  and  that  was 
an  incontestable  fact.  Yes,  it  was  a  fact  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  question  very  readily  suggested  itself,-  whether  the 
practical  value  of  the  promises  of  the  president  were  not  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  If  the  principle  set  up  were  rigor- 
ously carried  out,  people  would,  presumably,  not  have  re- 
mained far  behind  the  practice  hitherto,  and  then  scarcely 
anything  would  have  been  accomplished,  and  the  appeal  to 
the  goodness  of  their  motives  would  have  been  answered  by 
loud  laughter.  But,  after  all,  no  one  really  believed  in  the 
seriousness  of  the  promises,  and  not  at  all  because  John 
Tyler  had  made  them.  The  condition  precedent  to  "  a  per- 
manent and  radical  change  "  was  evidently  a  wide-spread 
conviction  of  its  necessity.  But  this  was  so  far  from  exist- 
ing, that  not  so  much  as  a  single  politician  or  journalist  had 
made  even  a  half-way  serious  endeavor  to  fathom  the  ques- 
tion, how  such  a  change  could  be  brought  about.  But,  in- 
deed, the  complaints  grew  louder  and  louder  that,  with  both 
parties,  the  mischief  had  reached  such  a  magnitude,  that,  in 
the  several  states,  the  whole  of  legislative  activity  was  at- 
tacTced  by  it  most  severely.*      The  democrats  might  sink 

'  The  "  Democratic  Review,"  January,  1842,  p.  47,  writes:  '*  One  of  the 
causes  which  lost  us  [the  democratsl  the  control  of  affairs  in  this  state  [New 
York]  is  now  obvious  to  everyone.  It  was  that  system  of  log-rolling  by 
which  the  support  of  every  local  interest  was  bargained  for  by  our  legis- 
latui-e,  at  the  expense  of  the  general  good.  It  became  so  universally  the 
groundwork  of  every  practice  in  legislation,  not  only  in  New  York,  but  in 


ttlek's  policy.  611 

deeper  in  the  mire,  bnt  there  was  truly  no  lack  of  proof  that 
the  whigs  also  were  wading  through  very  thick  slime.^     A 

every  internal  improvement  state,  that  it  would  seem  to  have  been  the  only 
system  adapted  to  the  habits  and  circumstances  of  the  time.  Allied  as  it 
was  to  the  extension  of  a  vast  paper-money  engine,  then  in  the  zenith  of 
its  power,  it  was  impossible  to  withstand  it,  and  both  parties  for  a  time 
vied  with  each  other  in  the  encoura^ment  of  the  practice. ' '  That  in  many 
other  states  things  were  almost  as  bad  as  in  New  York,  may  be  shown  by 
the  description  which  the  same  journal  in  March,  1847,  gives  of  the  state 
of  things  in  Ohio  during  the  last  preceding  years:  "  It  is  not  an  absurd 
judicial  organization  alone  that  affects  Ohio;  she  has,  perhaps,  more  than 
any  other  state,  suffered  from  the  overabundance  of  private  legislation,  of 
charter-mongering,  contract-letting,  and  debt-creating.  (Corruption  has, 
through  unstable  and  hasty  legislation,  burdened  the  people  with  debts  and 
taxation  to  a  most  deplorable  extent.  No  state  has  greater  reasons  than 
Ohio  to  complain  of  ihe  iniquity  of  the  lobby.  For  years,  the  business  of 
lobbying  for  counties  and  towns  and  dty  charters  was  a  lucrative  one,  and 
private  emolument  has  been  the  basis  of  five-sixths  of  the  legislation  in 
Ohio  as  well  as  of  other  states.  At  the  session  of  1844-45,  the  number  of 
laws  passed  to  promote  the  general  welfare  was  eighty-nine,  and  the 
number  of  those  that  concerned  individuals  only,  passed  to  benefit  them  at 
the  expense  of  the  public,  was  four  hundred  and  seventy.  For  every  law 
passed  gf  a  legitimate  nature,  five  were  enacted  for  private  profit,  includ- 
ing all  descriptions  of  corporations.  The  state  legislature  has  come  to  be 
regarded  more  as  the  means  of  exacting  something  from  the  public,  than 
as  the  meeting  of  the  delegates  of  the  people  assembled  to  transact  pubUc 
business  under  written  instructions."  A  democrat  from  Illinois  writes,  on 
the  11th  of  July,  1843,  to  the  "  Charleston  Mercury: "  "  The  nomination  of 
all  candidates  among  us  is  announced  by  county,  district  or  state  conven- 
tions; but  the  delegates  to  those  conventions  are  virtually  appointed  by 
vioilance,  corresponding  and  central  committees,  composed,  for  the  most 
part,  of  office-holders,  office-seekers,  and  newspaper  editors,  who  are  seek- 
ing office  and  patronage.  The  nucleus  around  which  these  committees 
were  first  formed,  were  the  federal  officers,  consisting  of  attorneys,  mar- 
shals, receivers  and  registers  of  land  offices,  surveyors  general,  and  post- 
masters."   Niles,  LXIV,  p.  393. 

'  The  New  York  state  convention  of  whigs,  in  October,  1841,  called  the 
"to  the  victors  belong  the  spoils"  of  the  democrats,  "  abominable  doctrine;" 
but  added  "  it  is  its  [of  the  party  at  the  hehn]  right  and  its  duty  to  conduct 
these  [the  administrative]  operations  mainly  by  the  hands  of  its  friends.  We 
respectfully  commend  this  just  and  necessary  rule  to  the  notice  of  the  preai- 


512  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

permanent  and  radical  change,  therefore,  would  have  to  be 
obtained  bj  force  against  the  serried  opposition  of  the  poli- 
ticians of  both  parties,  and  that,  at  the  time,  was  simply  im- 
possible, because  the  people  did  not  support  the  president  with 
the  necessary  resolution  nor  with  the  necessary  intelligence. 
Tlie  abrupt  descent  was  continued,  nor  was  the  ground  yet. 
by  any  means,  reached  from  which  the  slow  and  difficult 
ascent  might  be  begun.  People  were  not  yet  convinced  of 
the  necessity  of  a  change,  but  they  now,  for  the  first  time, 
entered  into  that  phase  of  development  in  which  they  began 
to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  mischief  as  an  evil,  great, 
indeed,  but  unavoidable.^ 

Nothing  that  Tyler  was  able  to  do  could  have  altered  this; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  could,  indeed,  promote  this  de- 
velopment, and  he  took  care  to  do  so.  He  was  not  de- 
feated in  a  hopeless  but  honorable  struggle  with  the  poli- 
ticians.    In  this  very  respect  he  proved  himself  the  worst 

dent  for  a  more  efficient  observance  and  enforcement  than  it  has  yet  received 
at  his  hands."  Niles,  LXI,  p.  127.  Granger,  the  postmaster-general  in 
Tyler's  first  cabinet,  said  in  the  young  men's  whig  convention  in  western 
New  York:  "  The  revolution  of  last  year  was  not  accompUshed  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  placing  the  executive  officers  at  Washington  in  snug  and 
comfortable  places,  while  the  horde  of  office-holders  throughout  the  country 
remained  undisturbed.  Their  removal  was  as  much  desired  by  the  people 
as  was  the  change  in  the  highest  officers  of  the  government.  So  perfectly 
was  this  understood,  that  it  was  due  to  our  adversaries  to  say,  that  they 
did  not  complain  when  removed,  and  justly  laughed  at  us  when  permitted 
to  remain."  Hence  he  points  to  it  as  one  of  the  most  material  charge? 
against  Tyler,  that  he  left  so  many  persons  in  office.     Ibid.,  p.  231. 

'  People  had  already  come  to  look  upon  a  person's  character  as  suspi- 
cious, simply  because  he  filled  a  public  office.  In  a  letter  from  Danville, 
Illinois,  of  the  5th  of  June,  1843,  we  read:  "  Time  was  when  it  was  an 
honor  to  be  an  officer,  for  few  but  honorable  men  could  get  there.  Now  it 
is  in  and  of  itself  rather  a  disgrace;  as  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  the  suspicion 
that  a  man  must  have  been  the  mean,  cowardly,  cringing,  servile  tool  of' 
a  party,  a  mere  cat's-paw,  in  order  to  get  into  office;  and  unless  we  know 
his  character  from  some  other  source,  we  can  hardly  help  despising  him 
from  the  fact  that  he  is  in  office."    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  351. 


FEELING    AMONG    THE   DEM0CKAT8.  513 

among  all  tlie  politicians.  The  more  the  number  of  his 
adherents  melted  away,  the  more  intent  upon  reelection  did 
lie  become,*  and  the  more  violently  did  he  poke  the  fire 
under  the  boiler  of  the  patronage-machine.  His  little  soul 
thought  his  people  so  small  that  he  believed  he  had,  in  the 
bestowal  of  offices,  the  sure  key  to  the  White  House,  and  the 
nearer  his  term  of  office  approached  its  end,  the  more  regard- 
lessly  did  he  dispose  of  them  as  if  they  were  his  private 
])roperty.  It  was  not  only  the  whigs  who  accused  him  of 
this.^  The  democrats,  among  whom  chiefly  he  went  about 
peddling  his  stock  in  trade,  did  not  undervalue  the  advantage 
which  a  policy  of  this  kind,  as  unwise  as  it  was  shameless, 
brought  to  them.  They  were  satisfied  to  see  the  whigs  cast 
out  and  people  put  in  their  place  who  would,  for  the  most 
part,  cling  to  them  the  moment  they  became  convinced  of 
Tyler's  political  bankruptcy.  But  they  repelled  the  attempt 
to  buy  the  party  with  office- trumpery  as  an  insult,  tlie  base- 
ness of  which  was  surpassed  only  by  its  stupidity.^ 

'  Even  Wise,  the  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Tyler,  writes:  "  His  only  fail- 
ure was  to  aspire  to  oflBce,  and  to  succeed  to  a  succession."  Seven  Decades, 
p.  232. 

« In  a  letter  dated  as  far  back  as  May  1, 1842,  Crittenden  makes  mention 
of  the  rumor  that  Tyler  would  deprive  all  "  Clay  whigs  and  ultra  demo- 
crats of  office,  and  replace  them  by  'moderate  men,  alias  Tyler  men.' 
He,  however,  considered  it  improbable  that  the  president  would  venture  to 
do  this."  Coleman,  life  of  Crittenden,  1,  p.  1Tb.  Winfield  tjcott  writes  to 
Crittenden,  April  3,  1843:  "Removals  and  putting  in  relatives  and  cor- 
rupt hacks  are  the  order  of  the  day."    Ibid.,  I,  p.  202. 

» "  His  [Tyler'sl  recent  course  in  the  particular  above  alluded  to  —  this 
systematized  application  of  all  the  enginery  of  official  power  at  his  com- 
mand toward  the  futile  absurdity  of  his  hope  for  a  democratic  nomina- 
tion—this meretricious  boldness  with  which  the  smiles  and  more  substantial 
favors  of  office  are  not  only  granted,  but  tendered  to  any  democrat  of  decent 
party  standing,  who  can  be  found  willing  to  contammate  himself  with  the 
disgustfulness  of  such  political  prostitution  —  this  wholesale  and  retail 
venality  of  patronage,  not  only  bestowed  at  the  central  depot  in  the  higher 
diplomatic  bribes  for  congressional  support  and  devotion,  but  peddlod 
33 


514  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

The  wbigs,  on  the  other  hand,  did  not  manifest  the  least 
depression  of  spirits  because  thej  were  robbed  of  the  offices. 
The  animosity  of  those  who  had  been  expelled  from  office 
was,  in  this  case,  probably  a  still  sharper  spur  than  the  desire 
to  maintain  possession  would  have  been.  And  important 
as  the  question  of  the  spoils  was,  the  decision  did  not  de- 
pend upon  it.  The  whigs  expected  the  decision  from  very 
different  forces,  and  they  were  not  wrong  in  thinking  that 
they  had  a  better  prospect  of  success  than  their  opponents. 
Above  all,  they  had  a  great  advantage  in  being  entirely 
united  in  respect  to  the  person  of  their  candidate.  In  Mas- 
sachusetts and  New  Hampshire,  indeed,  an  agitation  in  favor 

around  the  country  wherever  a  little  village  postmaster  can  be  found  sus- 
pected of  being  suspicious  as  to  the  zeal  and  sincerity  of  his  attachment 
to  the  administration  —  all  this,  we  say,  following  so  closely  as  it  did  on 
the  heels  of  Mr.  Tyler's  own  recent  professions  on  these  very  identical 
points  of  political  principle,  not  only  necessarily  inspires  us  with  an  utter 
disgust  for  his  present  course  of  administration,  and  distrust  for  anything 
that  can  come  out  of  it  within  the  period  for  which  the  country  has  yet  to 
tolerate  it;  but  also,  reflecting  back  upon  the  past  the  Ught  of  its  illustra- 
tion of  the  political  character  of  the  man  who  could  be  capable  of  it,  ex- 
hibits him  in  an  aspect  which  compels  us  to  assent  to  the  justice  of  the 
least  flattering  of  the  portraits  recently  drawn  of  him  by  all  the  orators 
and  editors  of  his  own  quondam  party.  .  .  ,  The  celebrated  impeach- 
ment farce  of  Botts  was  only  ridiculous;  but  we  do  confess  that  if  such  a 
punishment  for  presidential  malfeasance  were  practicable,  we  should  rejoice 
to  see  it  applied,  in  the  present  case,  for  the  vice-president's  outrageous 
abuse  and  misuse  of  the  patronage  power  of  his  office.  .  .  .  Abandon 
this  worse  than  idle  attempt  to  bribe  our  favor."  "The  Democratic  Re- 
view," July,  1843,  pp.  98,  99.  There  was,  however,  no  lack  of  journals 
which  urged  Tyler  on,  with  the  hope  that  he  might  still  win  the  favor  of 
the  democrats  if  he  would  surrender  the  whole  plunder  to  them.  Thus, 
for  instance,  the  "  American  Sentinel "  says  m  the  summer  of  1843:  "  It 
is  a  duty  which  President  Tyler  owes  to  himself,  to  his  friends,  to  the  dem- 
ocratic party,  and  to  the  country  at  large,  thoroughly  to  democraticize 
his  adminstration  —  to  remove  from  office,  without  hesitation,  all  secret 
enemies  and  lukewarm  friends,  and  to  fill  their  places  with  men  from  the 
democratic  ranks."    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  315. 


FEELING   AMONG  THE  DEMOCBA.TS.  515 

of  Webster/  who  had  resigned  the  secretaryship  of  state  on 
the  8th  of  May,  1843,  was  tried.  But  it  was  so  evident  that 
he  would  completely  undermine'  his  position  with  the  whigs, 
if  he  insisted  on  his  hopeless  candidacy,  that,  from  the  first, 
the  question  was  simply  when  he  would  formally  renounce 
it  in  favor  of  Clay.  From  the  time  of  Harrison's  death,  it 
was  as  good  as  certain,  that  Clay  would  be  the  "banner- 
bearer  "  of  the  whigs  in  the  next  electoral  campaign.  His 
resignation  as  senator  (16th  of  February  or  31st  of  March, 
1842)  was  considered  by  Adams  as  a  preparation  for  official 
candidacy,'  and,  indeed,  this  was  not  delayed  more  than  a 
few  weeks.  North  Carolina  nominated  him  on  the  4th  of 
April,  and  in  the  following  months,  Georgia,  Maine  and 
Maryland  followed  the  example.*  Animosity  at  seeing  the 
fruits  of  the  victory  of  1840  lost,  and  the  recognition  of  the 
great  mistake  which  had  then  been  made,  produced  an  ener- 
getic summoning  of  all  forces,  while  the  fact  that,  spite  of 
this  mistake,  a  brilliant  victory  was  then  won,  seemed  to 
justify  the  hope  of  a  still  more  brilliant  victory  now  that 
the  right  man  had  been  placed  at  the  head.  Clay  himself 
was  entirely  confident.''  His  sanguine  temperament,  indeed, 
made  him  one  of  the  worst  prophets  of  the  countiy  in  such 
things,  just  as  immediately  before  his  defeat  he  thought  that 
the  prize  was  as  surely  his  as  if  he  had  it  in  his  pocket.* 
But  Webster,  in  May,  1844,  had  declared  undeceiving  to  be 

'Nile8,LXIV,p.  236. 

» Adams  attributed  it  to  the  intrigues  of  Webster  that  the  democratB 
obtained  the  preponderance  in  MoBsachusetta,  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
XT,  p.  1381. 

3  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  p.  103. 

*Nile8,  LXII,  pp.  112, 117.  259,  804,  403. 

'  March  17,  1844,  Priv.  Corresp.  of  Henry  Clay,  pp.  485,  486. 

« .'  ^  .  .  if  I  am  to  credit  the  confident  assurances  which  I  receive 
from  all  quarters,  there  is  no  doubt  of  a  triumphant  result"  Oct.  26, 1844. 
Ibid.,  p.  495. 


516  Jackson's  admintstkation — annexation  of  texas. 

very  nearly  impossible,^  and  the  whole  party  was,  this  time, 
to  the  last,  in  high  spirits,  and  rejoiced  over  the  anticipated 
victory. 

The  same  could  not  be  said,  at  least  during  the  first  stages 
of  the  electoral  campaign,  of  the  democrats.  Tyler  cut  a 
ridiculous  figure  when  he  took  the  field  himself,  with  his 
little  body  of  federal  officials;  but  the  small  crowd  that 
would  follow  him  had  to  be  taken  in  greatest  part  from  the 
democrats,  and  might  very  readily  be  sufficient  to  decide  the 
issue.  And  Tyler  was  not  a  man  who  could  be  easily  con- 
vinced of  the  folly  of  his  hopes.  His  organ,  the  Auroi'a^ 
formally  set  him  up  as  a  candidate  at  the  Jaeginning  of  July, 
1843.^  The  Madlsonian,  which  was  nearest  to  the  White 
House,  then  indeed  declared,  on  the  6th  of  January,  1844: 
""We  maintain  an  armed  neutrality  between  Mr.  Clay  and 
Mr.  Yan  Buren."*  But  this  was  not  at  all  intended  to  pro- 
claim that  the  president  had  taken  leave  of  his  sweet  dreams. 
He,  now,  as  well  as  previously,  listened  greedily  to  the 
stories  he  was  told  of  the  might  with  which  the  masses  had 
risen  up  for  him.*  And  when  a  national  convention  at 
Baltimore  —  the  sorriest  meeting  of  this  name  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  United  States  —  nominated  him  on  the  2Tth  of 
May,  he  willingly  accepted  the  candidacy.' 

Yet  the  hope  that  Tyler  would  come  to  his  senses  some- 
what, before  it  was  too  late,  was  not  given  up.     The  divisions 

'  "  As  I  have  said,  we  can  elect  both  our  candidates.  It  is  not  in  thn 
chapter  of  probabilities,  hardly  in  that  of  accidents,  that  tliey  can  be 
beaten."    Speech  of  May  10,  at  Faneuil  Hall.    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  204. 

«Niles,  LXIV,  p.  314. 

•ibid.,  LXV,  p.  328. 

*This  spontaneous  uprising  of  the  masses  which,  it  was  alleged,  threw 
down  everything  that  opposed  its  well  nigh  irresistible  force,  served  both 
parties  a  long  time  as  a  great  subject  ior  the  exercise  of  tlieir  humor. 
A  Tyler  mass  meeting  of  this  kind  which,  it  is  said,  consisted  of  the  one 
man  who  called  it,  attained  a  special  celebrity. 

•Niles,  LXVI,  pp.  233,  234. 


VAN  buben'b  candidacy.  517 

which  otherwise  prevailed  ia  the  party  in  relation  to  the 
f|uestion  of  persons,  caused  greater  alarm.  It  seemed  at  first 
as  if  the  same  unanimity  would  obtain  among  the  democrats 
as  among  the  wliigs.  And  yet  they  neither  had  a  personage 
who  even  approximately  occupied  among  them  a  position 
like  that  of  Clay  among  the  former;  nor  had  the  masses  or 
the  leaders,  from  the  first,  decided  upon  a  definite  man.  Only 
the  dominant  portion  of  the  party  had  acted,  from  the  be- 
ginning, as  if  it  were  self-evident  that  he  was  tlie  candidate 
who,  as  they  alleged,  had  been  deprived  in  1840,  by  direct 
and  indirect  intrigue,  of  election.  This  was  to  be  considered 
self-evident,  because  this  satisfaction  was  due  to  Van  Buren 
personally — a  claim  which  evidently  could  not  stand  the 
least  criticism.  At  first  glance,  it  must  have  seemed  very 
much  of  a  question  whether  the  party  —  leaving  his  wortji 
or  worthlessness  as  a  statesman,  and  his  character,  entirely 
out  of  consideration  —  would  be  served  by  his  candidacy. 
Defeated  candidates  had  been  put  forward  a  second  time  by 
both  parties,  and  had  come  off  victorious  the  second  time; 
but  never  before  had  this  been  attempted  in  the  case  of  a 
presidential  candidate.  Tlie  higher  the  weight  of  patronage 
was  estimated,  the  more  pertinent  was  the  question,  whether 
a  man  could  regain  supremacy  who,  when  in  the  possession 
of  power,  did  not  known  how  to  maintain  it.  Moreover  it 
could  not  be  ignored  that  a  certain  feeling  of  the  people  was 
opposed  to  seeing  ex-presidents  appear  again  on  the  stage  of 
national  politics.  These  two  elements  were  perfectly  suflS- 
cient  to  cause  this  confident "  self-evident "  not  to  be  accepted 
without  any  more  ado,  the  moment  the  people  began  to 
think  of  a  real  resolve.  In  Van  Buren's  own  state,  a  portion 
of  the  party  pointed  with  caustic  incisiveness  to  the  fact  that 
his  importance  was  not  based  on  his  endowments  and  merits 
as  a  statesman,  but  that  it  was  altogether  artificial,*  and  tliat 

' "  Search  in  your  minds  for  all  you  know  about  turn  [Van  Burenl,  and 


518  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

his  candidacy  meant  the  submission  to  the  people  of  the 
question,  whether  they  desired  to  call  the  pack  which  they 
had  dismissed  the  service  with  such  deep  and  just  loathing 
in  1840,  back  to  rule.^  This  was  all  so  true,  and  was  so 
universally  recognized  as  true,  and  felt  to  be  true,  that 
there  would  have  been  no  need  whatever  of  a  serious  fight 
against  Yan  Buren's  candidacy,  if  the  party  had  had  any 
leader  at  all.  It  mattered  not  whom  they  might  choose 
to  be  their   candidate,   in  one  part  of   the  Union   or  an- 

you  shall  find  you  know  what  oflBces  he  has  held,  and  that  you  do  not  very 
well  know  how  he  came  to  be  selected  for  them.  He  has  never  dealt  with 
you  directly,  but  always  at  one  remove,  always,  as  it  were,  at  second-hand. 
He  has  not  stood  out,  a  man  of  free  speech  and  action,  in  bold  relief,  like 
Mr.  Calhoun,  before  the  people,  but  he  has  practised  apart  with  their  ser- 
vants. By  those  the  people  trusted  he  had  been  trusted,  but  not  by  them. 
He  is  a  man  of  calculation,  and  one  who  makes  no  mistakes,  and  his 
strength  lies  in  his  knowledge  of  every  pivot  and  pinion  of  the  political 
system.  Such  knowledge  in  political  life  is  eminently  valuable  and  useful, 
and  the  man  who  had  a  genius  for  acquiring  it  and  turning  it  into  account 
became  indispensable  in  public  bodies.  Not  in  political  clubs  and  commit- 
tees and  conventions  only,  but  also  in  legislatures  and  cabinet  councils,  and 
to  all  in  turn  he  did  good  service,  and  from  all  he  collected  his  wages  in 
advancement.  But  he  has  no  personal  popularity;  he  never  had  any;  and 
the  deliberate  approbation,  half  negative,  that  we  bestow  on  his  public 
career,  is  a  thing  as  different  from  the  genial  feelings  of  friendship  with 
which  men  speak  of  Jackson  or  Calhoun,  as  a  certificate  of  good  character 
is  different  from  a  cordial  embrace."  Address  of  the  committee  appointed 
by  a  meeting  of  democratic  voters  of  the  city  of  New  York,  held  in  the 
Park,  4th  of  Sept.,  1843.    Niles,  LXV,  p.  55. 

'  "  He  [Van  Buren]  comes  not  alone,  but  as  the  chief  of  a  band,  which 
the  country  had  devoutly  hoped  was  dispersed,  never  to  be  collected  again. 
He  comes  as  the  representative  of  the  same  old  corrupt  and  corrupting  sys- 
tem of  party  tactics,  followed  by  the  same  swarm  of  greedy  spoilsmen,  with 
their  appetite  for  plunder  sharpened  by  the  few  years'  abstinence  they  have 
been  forced,  through  the  remains  of  the  original  virtue  and  patiiotism  of 
the  country,  to  practice.  Gratify  his  wishes,  restore  him  to  the  place  he  ia 
personally  soliciting,  and  we  lose  all  that  was  good  in  the  defeat  of  the 
republican  party  in  1840,  and  retain  all  the  evil."  Brownson's  Review, 
Jan.,  1844,  p.  98. 


CHA£ACT£B  OF  BUCHANAN.  519 

otlier,  his  name  would  be  a  word  without  meaning.  And 
this  was  the  most  favorable  case.  Under  all  circumstances, 
party  discipline  had  a  good  half  of  the  work  to  do,  and  for 
the  one  who  was  really  among  the  great  men  of  the  nation 
it  would  have  had  to  be  stretched  even  to  the  point  of  break- 
ing. Yan  Buren  alone  had  everywhere  a  powerful  follow- 
ing—  even  if  this  were  due  to  artificial  causes  —  and  was 
therefore,  in  a  certain  sense,  without  rivals.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  was  no  lack  of  men  who  had  a  greater  reserve 
force  than  he  in  one  section  of  the  coimtry,or  at  least  in  one 
state,  and  who  thought  themselves  strong  enough  to  put 
their  fortune  to  the  test.  The  tournament  of  the  national 
parties  was  preceded  by  a  jeu  de  rose  in  the  democratic 
camp,  in  which  the  "  little  magician  "  was  close  pressed  by 
four  rivals  at  once. 

The  two  opponents  from  whom  Van  Buren  had  least  to 
fear  remained  longest  in  the  lists.  Richard  M.  Johnson,  of 
Kentucky,  who  had  formerly  been  vice-president,  was  a  third 
class  personage.  Were  it  not  that  he  had  distinguished 
himself  in  the  "battle"  on  the  Thames,  and  —  as  he  claimed 
himself  at  least — slain  the  chief,  Tecumseh,  with  his  own 
hand,  he  would  scarcely  have  considered  himself  justified  in 
permitting  his  ambition  to  aim  so  high.  General  Lewis 
Cass,  whom  indignation  at  the  treaty  of  Washington  had 
driven  to  the  resignation  of  his  ambassadorship,  was  no 
statesman,  but  a  man  of  some  talent,  and  of  about  as  much 
character  as  could  be  expected  from  a  northern  democratic 
politician  of  the  genuine  stamp,  who,  with  the  help  of  the 
slavocracy,  endeavored  to  reach  the  Wliite  House.  He  had 
been  eighteen  years  governor  of  the  territory  of  Michigan, 
and  secretary  of  war  under  Jackson.  The  regard  in  which 
he  was  held  by  the  party  was  great  enough  to  permit  him  to 
hope  that  he  would  sooner  or  later  become  their  chosen  one. 
But  presumably,  his  time  had  not  yet  come.    As  he  had 


520  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

never  been  a  member  of  congress,  and  it  wa3  impossible 
even  for  the  pens  of  American  journalists  to  swell  liis  merits 
in  the  war  of  1812  into  the  dimensions  of  those  of  the  career 
of  a  great  marshal,  there  was  need  of  some  time  to  iuake 
him  appear  a  real  national,  instead  of  a  more  specilically 
northwestern,  magnate.     For  the  present,  the  most  import- 
ant meaning  of  his  candidacy  consisted  probably  in  this,  that 
the  northwest  gave  it  to  be  understood,  in  this  formal  man- 
ner, that  it  was  high  time  to  take  the  president  from  that 
part  of  the  country.     James  Buchanan,  the  third  candidate, 
was  a  dangerous  rival,  for  the  reason  more  particularly  that 
he  was  the  favorite  son  of  the  state  of  Pennsylvania,  whose 
voice  was  so  weighty  in  national  affairs.     Yet  his  personal 
qualities  gave  occasion  to  fear  him  more  than  Johnson  and 
Cass.     He  was  just  as  little  of  a  statesman  as  these,  but  he 
was  an  entirely  equal  rival  of  Yan  Buren  in  his  own  very  pe- 
culiar sjihere;  a  politician  as  sly,  smooth,  weak  and  empty  as 
can  well  be  imagined;  in  high-sounding  phrases  always  mak- 
ing a  show  of  great  moral  courage  where  there  was  no  need  of 
it;  an  entirely  reliable  party  man,  unless  he  was  obliged  to 
separate  himself  from  the  party  in  order  not  to  undermine  his 
position  in  Pennsylvania;  moving  over  the  surface  of  every 
question  with  a  fluent  and  ready  tongue;  a  master  in  the  art 
of  so  arranging  words  that  he  might  not  be  understood  by 
any  party,  when  he  wished  not  to  be  understood ;  great  in 
the  use  of  all  small  means,  but  too  wise  to  engage  easily  in 
dangerous  intrigues,  or  to*  underestimate  the  value  of  the 
bearing  of  the  man  of  honor;  closely  observing  the  smallest 
variations  in  the  political  atmosphere,  but  insensible  to  the 
great  currents  of  the  time;  entirely  clear  only  on  one  point 
—  that  the  slavocracy  was  the  star  which  guided  the  course 
to  the  "White  House;  hungry  for  regard,  influence  and  honor, 
but  too  diminutive  in  intellect  and  character  to  feel  the  glow 
of  true  ambition;  a  man  made,  so  to  speak,  to  be  neither 


Calhoun's  ambition.  521 

loved  nor  hated,  esteemed  nor  despised,  sliglited  nor  ad- 
mired, intended  to  plaj  an  influential  part  in  the  agitation  of 
parties,  and  by  history  to  be  silently  numbered  with  the 
dead,  because  in  all  his  doings  there  was  not  a  single  deed;  a 
man  to  whom  fate  could  do  nothing  worse  than  place  him  at 
the  helm  in  an  eventful  period. 

Yan  Buren's  partisans,  however,  did  not  underestimate 
Buchanan's  prudence  when  they  hoped  that  he  would  come 
to  a  timely  recognition  of  the  fact  that  neither  had  his  time 
come  yet.  As  far  as  could  now  be  seen,  no  really  serious  dan- 
ger threatened  —  not  Yan  Buren  alone  but  the  party  also  — 
to  grow  out  of  any  candidacy  but  the  fourth.  Calhoun  still 
believed  he  saw  one  possibility  more  of  being  able,  at  last, 
to  grasp  the  prize  so  long  and  so  ardently  coveted.  It  can 
scarcely  be  claimed  that  the  possibility  existed  even  for  a 
single  moment.  But  if  he  persevered  in  that  faith,  a  division 
was  unavoidable,  and  any  division  made  defeat  certain.  And 
both  he  and  his  adherents  seemed  to  be  firmly  resolved  not 
to  leave  the  field,  whatever  might  be  the  consequences.  The 
controversy  between  the  two  divisions  was  carried  on  for  a 
long  time  with  such  bitterness  and  acrimony  that  the  fight 
against  the  whigs  fell  entirely  into  the  back-ground.  South 
Carolina  came  forward  this  time  for  its  greatest  son,  with 
all  the  inconsiderate  energy  with  which  it  was  wont  to  develop 
in  all  highly  critical  moments,  and  in  many  other  states  also, 
it  made  itself  decidedly  felt,  that  none  of  the  other  competi- 
tors for  the  presidency  came  up  even  approximately  to  Cal- 
houn in  fame,  intellect,  character  or  will. 

Precisely  in  New  York,  where  Yan  Buren  must  have  been 
best  known,  the  Calhounites  developed  great  strength.  Tlie 
lower  sti-ata  of  the  population  of  the  city,  especially  the 
Irish,  furnished  the  principal  contingent  here.*    The  younger 

'  To  the  "  Charleston  Mercury,"  on  the  18th  of  June,  1843,  was  written 
from  New  York :    "  Nearly  all  the  more  able  and  enthusiastic  democratic 


522  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

men  wanted  a  person  for  whom  they  could  themselves  feel 
some  enthusiasm,  and  this  the  trim  little  tnnn  vrith  the  cool, 
reserved  smile  could  not  excite;  and  with  the  Irish,  Calhoun's 
pedigree  was  unquestionably  of  great  weight.  The  largest 
group  among  the  Catholics,  who,  according  to  Hamilton's 
statement,  had  been  carried  so  skillfully  in  corjpore  by  Yan 
Buren  into  the  political  camp  of  the  democracy,  now  turned 
away  from  him.  The  clergy  had  nothing  to  do  with  this. 
Kot  only  was  the  question  of  persons  indifferent  to  them, 
but  at  first  they  had  taken  no  position  whatever  in  party  poli- 
tics, and  to  the  extent  that  they  had  done  so  in  most  recent 
years,  they  did  it  not  of  their  own  initiative,  but  in  self-de- 
fense.^ The  whigs  drove  the  Catholics  as  Catholics,  into  the 
ranks  of  their  opponents.  The  whigs  were  not  precisely 
identified  with  the  native  Americans,'^  but  these  had  pro- 
ceeded from  the  whigs,^  and  they  now,  as  well  as  previously, 

young  raen,  the  great  body  of  the  Irish  population,  and  the  most  respect- 
able classes  of  mechanics,  I  think  I  may  say,  are  warm  and  uncompro- 
nnising  friends  of  the  champion  of  fr*e  trade."    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  316. 

'  "Am  1  unjust  in  saying  that  the  whig  party  is  unwilling  to  be  just  to 
foreigners  ?  You  know  that  1  have  been  no  more  than  just  to  them.  Am 
I  not  struck  by  cowardly  hands  for  that  justice?  .  .  .  From  one  end 
of  the  state  to  the  other,  the  complaint  rings  that  Bishop  Hughes  and 
his  clergy  have  excited  the  CathoUcs  against  us.  I  know  this  to  be  untrue, 
totally  untrue.  Who  corrects  the  error  ?  Who  disavows  the  unjust  charge  ? 
On  the  contraiy,  do  we  not  hear  of  the  organization  of  a  party  against 
Catholics,  and  this  false  charge  made  the  justification  of  it.  Is  not '  pro- 
scription of  immigrants,'  openly  avowed  as  the  policy  of  the  whig  party?" 
W.  H.  Seward  to  B.  S.,  Esq.,  New  York;  Albany,  Nov.  15,  1840. 
Seward's  Works,  III,  p.  389. 

*  Thus,  for  instance,  the  native  Americans  appeared  in  the  state  elections 
of  New  York  in  November,  1843,  as  an  independent  group,  and  cast  8,265 
votes.    Niles,  LXV,  p.  192. 

'  We  may  say  this,  although  the  first  external  impulse  to  the  formation 
of  the  party  is  said  to  have  been  given  m  the  following  manner:  The 
democratic  party  leadei-s  of  an  election  district  near  Philadelphia  struck  an 
Irish  candidate  by  the  name  of  Clai'k  from  the  party  list.  Embittered  by 
this,  the  Irish,  three  years  later,  voted  with  the  whigs  and  decided  the 


THE  NATIVE   AMEKICANS.  523 

were  recruited  preponderantly  from  the  whigs.*  That  such 
a  party  of  nativists  had  heen  formed,  and  assumed  a  par- 
ticularly severe  attitude  towards  the  Catholic  immigrants, 
was  not  only  very  intelligible,  but  certainly  excusable.  The 
formation  of  the  nativist  party  had  begun  in  the  preceding 
decade,  that  is,  at  the  time  when  immigration,  especially  from 
Ireland,  began  to  assume  very  large  dimensions,  and  when 
everything  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the  deluge  was  only  com- 
ing.2  Much  experience  was  soon  acquired  showing  how  easily 
and  to  how  great  an  extent  it  was  possible  to  misuse  the  immi- 

election  in  their  favor.  This  led  to  nativist  manifestations,  which  caused 
tivmults  by  the  Irish  in  Kensington.  See  the  speech  of  Dixon,  of  Con- 
necticut, in  the  house  of  representatives,  December  30,  li^.  Congr. 
Globe,  29th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  p.  IIC. 

'  "  But  you  will  say  that  a  portion  of  the  naturalized  citizens  who  had 
heretofore  belonged  to  the  whig  party,  now  voted  for  our  opponents. 
Granted;  and  for  what  reason  did  they  so  vote?  Because  in  an  election 
excited  beyond  any  ever  known,  they  were  induced  to  believe  that  the 
illiberality  so  often,  and  I  am  obliged  to  say  so  generally,  expressftd  by  the 
whigs,  was  a  principle  of  the  whig  party,  and  that  in  Mr.  Van  Buren's 
defeat  they  should  lose  a  protector;  in  General  Hairison's  election,  they 
would  find  a  persecutor,  an  oppressor.  Remember  what  taunts,  iiyuries, 
insults,  they  have  suffered,  and  reflect  whether  they  must  not  necessarily 
be  jealous  and  suspicious.  .  .  .  Remember  the  perversenesa  of  our 
friends  on  that  subject.  Even  in  your  letter  now  before  me,  you  quote  an 
observation  of  General  Harrison.  '  The  people '  (not  as  you  have  quoted  it 
'Americans ')  must  do  their  own  voting  as  well  as  fighting,  as  expressing 
his  determination  to  deprive  adopted  citizens  of  their  civil  rights.  .  .  . 
But  if  I  were  to  say  with  whom  lies  the  fault  of  Irishmen  voting  in  mass 
against  the  candidates  of  the  whig  party,  I  should  say  that  the  fault  waa 
with  my  countrymen."  W.  H.  Seward  to  B.  S.,  Esq.,  November  12,  1840. 
Seward's  Works,  III,  pp.  386,  387. 

*  "The  number  of  passengers  of  foreign  birth  landed  in  the  harbors  of 
the  United  States  was,  from  September  30,  1819,  to  September  80,  1829, 
128,502;  from  the  1st  of  October,  1829,  to  the  31st  of  December,  1839, 
.538,381 ;  from  the  1st  of  January,  1840,  to  the  30th  of  September,  1849, 
1,427,337.  Of  the  538,381  during  the  decade  1829-1839,  283,191  were 
from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland."  Knapp,  Immigration  and  the  Commis- 
sioners of  Emigration,  pp.  228,  230. 


624  Jackson's  admikistkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

grants  for  'psn'ty  purposes,  and  everything  conspired  to  cause 
the  Catholics  to  be  looked  upon  more  than  others  with  alarm 
and  mistrust.  The  no-popery  traditions  inherited  from  Enw-- 
land  had  not  yet  lost  their  power  entirely,  the  Irisli  were  in 
a  very  low  stage  of  culture,  and  the  history  of  the  Catholic 
church  showed  how  disposed  and  skillful  the  clergy  were  to 
possess  themselves  of  political  supremacy.  But  the  effort  to 
deprive  the  immigrants,  and  especially  the  Catholics,  of  their 
political  rights  could  not  be  justified,  and  the  whigs  were 
greatly  in  error  when  they  saw  an  element  of  strength  in 
their  connection  with  the  nativists;  and  this  wjiether  they 
went  hand  in  hand  with  them  or  brought  about  a  complete 
blending  of  them  with  themselves.*  The  proscription  of  the 
Catholics  was  in  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,* 
and  the  political  disfranchisement  of  the  immigrants  was 
irreconcilable  with  the  development  which  was  prescribed  to 
the  United  states  in  the  most  forcible  way  by  the  actual  con- 
dition of  things.  The  economic  interests  of  the  country  im- 
peratively demanded  the  promotion  to  the  utmost  of  Euro- 
pean immigration,  and  it  would  be  greatly  curtailed  in  case 

'  "There  is  a  great  tendency  among  the  whigs  to  unfurl  the  banner  of 
the  native  Amciican  party.  Whilst  I  own  I  have  a  great  sympathy  with 
that  party,  I  do  not  perceive  the  wisdom,  at  present,  either  of  the  whigs 
absorbing  it,  or  being  absorbed  by  it.  If  either  of  these  contingencies  weie 
to  happen,  our  adversaries  would  charge  that  it  was  the  same  old  party, 
with  a  new  name,  or  with  a  new  article  added  to  its  creed.  In  the  mean 
time  they  would  retain  all  the  foreign  vote,  which  they  have  consolidated, 
make  constant  further  accessions,  and  perhaps  regain  their  members  who 
have  joined  the  native  American  party.  1  am  disposed  to  think  that  it  is 
best  for  each  party,  the  whigs  and  the  natives,  to  retain  their  respective 
organizations  distinct  from  each  other,  and  to  cultivate  friendly  relations 
together."  H.  Clay  to  J.  J.  Crittenden,  Nov.  28,  1844;  Coleman,  Life  ot 
Crittenden,  I,  p.  224. 

'  Art.  "v^I,  sec.  3:  "No  religious  test  shall  ever  be  required  as  a  qualifi- 
aition  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States. ''  Amendment 
I :  "  Congi-ess  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion, 
or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereoL" 


VOTIKG   •JHE    "EEGULAB  TICKET."  525 

the  attempt  were  made  to  make  the  immigrants,  in  bold  con- 
trast with  the  fundamental  character  of  the  institutions  of 
the  country,  remain  political  pariahs.  It  was  certainly  ex- 
ceedingly difficult  to  assimilate  such  a  mass  of  foreign  ele- 
ments very  different  from  one  another,  without  any  political 
training  and  from  monarchical  states  in  which  the  principle 
of  guai-dianship  was  still  in  full  force,  in  a  short  space  of 
time.  It  Avonld  have  been  unnatural  if  it  did  not  frequently 
happen,  that  a  feeling  made  up  of  bitterness  and  pain  at  the 
dark  sides,  which  could  not  be  wanting  in  this  process  of  as- 
similation, overpowered  the  patriots.  But  the  problem  had 
to  be  solved  in  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  actually  solved 
and  is  solved  every  day. 

The  Irish  preferred  Calhoun  to  Yan  Buren,  but  they  did 
not  oppose  the  latter.  As  Catholics,  they  were  opposed  only 
to  the  whigs.^  Under  all  circumstances  they  belonged  to  the 
''  regular  "  democratic  candidate.  Hence,  violently  as  the 
txo  factions  in  New  York  waged  war  against  each  other,  the 
question  substantially  was  how  strong  the  Calhounites  would 
be  in  the  south.  They  still  hoped  to  gain  much  ground  there 
in  the  very  near  future.  For  this  reason,  they  asked  that 
the  national  convention  for  the  election  of  party  candidates 
might  not  take  place  till  the  spring  of  1844,  while  Yan  Buren's 
adherents  wished  to  see  it  fixed  for  as  early  a  date  as  Novem- 
l)er,  1843.  The  session  of  congress  during  which,  presum- 
ably, every  one  would  have  to  show  his  colors  in  reference  to 
all  kinds  of  important  questions,  was  to  meet  between  these 

'  *'  Our  opponents,  by  pointing  to  the  native  Americans  and  to  Mr.  Fre- 
linghuysen  [the  candidate  of  the  whigs  for  the  vice-presidency],  drove  the 
foreigTi  CathoUcs  from  us  and  defeated  us  in  this  state  "  [New  York].  M. 
Fillmore  to  Mr.  Clay,  Nov.  11,  1844;  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  498. 
In  May,  1844,  it  came  to  a  disgraceful,  petty  war  between  the  natives  and 
the  Catholics  in  Pennsylvania,  in  which  considerable  blood  was  spilt,  and 
the  incendiary's  torch  played  a  prominent  part  See  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  344; 
S'argent,  II,  p.  228,  seq. 


526  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

two  dates,  and  the  Calhounites  were  of  the  conviction  that 
many  of  the  Yan  Buren  people  would  not  be  able  to  prove 
their  orthodoxy.  The  presumption  was  well  founded.  Only 
the  Calhounites  did  not  recognize  to  what  extent  the  voting 
of  the  "  regular  ticket "  had  already  become  the  principal 
article  in  the  creed  of  the  democratic  party.  Yan  Buren  and 
his  political  kinsmen  knew  this  better,  and,  on  this  account, 
finally  yielded  in  this  point,  only  to  insist  all  the  more  ab- 
solutely on  their  view  in  the  other  controverted  previous 
question.  The  Calhounites  wanted  the  delegates  to  the 
national  convention  elected  by  districts,  while  their  oppo- 
nents would  have  the  decision,  as  to  the  mode  of  the  elec- 
tion, left  to  the  separate  states.  Both  groups  were  naturally 
determined,  first  of  all,  by  the  interests  of  their  respective 
candidates.  But  the  controversy  had  also  a  general  and 
permanent  meaning.  Otherwise  framed  the  question  was: 
Shall  the  national  conventions,  so  far  as  such  an  end  is  at  all 
attainable,  give  expression  to  the  wishes  of  the  party,  or  shall 
they,  as  far  as  possible,  be  only  an  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  political  "log-rollers?"  It  is  patent  how  easily  the  ma- 
jority of  the  delegates  might  represent  the  minority  of  the 
party  in  case  they  were  elected  by  states,  even  if  the  party 
had  participated  in  the  election  of  delegates  as  actively  as  in 
the  elections  proper.  But  if,  as  was  actually  the  case,  its 
participation  in  the  election  of  delegates  was  very  small,  it 
could  easily  happen  that  the  national  conventions  might  rep- 
resent only  a  little  pack  of  political  wire-pullers.  The  poli- 
ticians of  New  York  showed,  at  this  moment,  with  what 
blood-curdling  audacity  they  already  dared  to  put  the  "  vot- 
ing cattle  "  entirely  to  one  side,  and  with  what  patriotic  self- 
sacrifice  they  undertook  the  ungmteful  task  of  being  the 
"  party  "  themselves,  and  themselves  alone.  Of  the  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-eight  members  of  the  democratic  state  con- 
vention at  Syracuse,  the  great  majority  were  either  self-com- 


BUCHANAN   AND   VAN   BUEEN   WITHDRAW.  527 

missioned  or  had  received  their  commission  from  no  one  knew 
whom.  And  yet  they  not  only  established  the  confession  of 
faith  of  the  party  in  an  authoritative  manner,  but  they  imme- 
diately named  even  the  delegates  to  the  national  convention.* 
One  would  have  thought  that  such  an  unheard  of  mockwy 
of  the  principle  on  which  democracy  is  based  would  have 
caused  the  reasoning  of  the  Calhounites  to  get  a  hearing. 
But  say  what  they  might,  they  spoke  in  vain.  The  great 
majority  of  the  party  newspapers  favored  Yan  Buren;' 
and  yet  the  time  had  not  come  when  the  sound  sense  and 
moral  indignation  of  the  people  opportunely  broke  through 
the  lines  of  party,  with  such  force  that  even  the  all-powerful 
press  had  to  bow  humbly  down.     Tlie  Calhounites  were 

'Taylor,  of  the  city  of  New  York,  said  in  the  convention:  "The  old 
artful  battle  armory  has  been  set  in  motion  to  secure  his  [Van  Buren's] 
renomination.  Here,  before  me,  stands  the  undeniable  proof.  A  con- 
vention numbering  one  hundred  and  twenty-eigrht  members,  appearing 
here  to  throw  the  lasso  over  the  250,000  democratic  votes  of  the  state  of 
New  York.  By  what  authority?  Why,  by  their  own  confession,  they 
appear  here  by  an  authority  not  exceeding  nine  thousand  people.  And 
yet  we  are  told  they  speak  the  sentiment  of  nine-tenths  of  the  whole  de- 
mocracy of  the  state.  This  in  the  very  face  of  discord,  such  as  was 
never  before  witnessed  in  the  Union."  Niles,  LXV,  p.  42.  To  the 
"  Charleston  Mercury  "  was  written  from  New  York:  "  Of  the  whole  del- 
egates, numbering  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight,  not  over  thirty  of  them 
had  anjrthing  to  show  for  their  appointment,  except  public  report.  Even 
old  Rockland  county,  with  her  1,000  democratic  majority,  did  not  feel  in- 
terested sufBciently  for  New  York's  favorite  son  to  even  have  any  person  to 
represent  her. 

"  Another  circumstance  is  worthy  of  note;  upwards  of  fifty  of  the  dele- 
gates were  members  of  the  last  legislature — the  very  persons  who  there, 
in  their  legislative  capacity,  indorsed  Mr.  Van  Buren.  No  doubt  they  felt 
a  desire,  as  no  one  else  did,  to  attend  the  convention  and  confirm  their 
former  act."  Niles,  LXV,  p.  53.  Nineteen  members  of  the  convention 
protested  against  the  nomination  of  the  delegates  by  it. 

» "  .  .  'Tis  true  the  democratic  press  throughout  the  Union  is  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  old  friends.  It  was  from  his  administration 
they  last  received  succor,  and  to  him  they  cleave  for  a  renewal."  Taylor, 
in  the  speech  cited. 


52S  Jackson's  administeation  —  ai;nexation  of  texas. 

jeered  at  because  they  —  who,  indeed,  believed  themselves  to 
have  a  monopoly  of  the  pure  states- rights  doctrine — ven- 
tured to  wish  to  give  prescriptions  to  the  "  states."  What 
ever  might  be  thought  of  their  candidates,  in  the  question  of 
the  election  of  delegates  they  had  everything  in  their  favor, 
except  the  interests  of  the  bread-and-butter  politicians,  and 
ajrainst  these  nothing:  availed.  Buchanan  had  withdrawn 
as  a  candidate  as  early  as  the  14th  of  December,  1843.^  Not 
many  weeks  afterwards,  Calhoun  became  convinced  that  all 
fighting  against  these  modem  pretorians  of  the  pure  democ- 
racy was  in  vain.  He  also  quitted  the  field  on  the  20th  of 
Januaiy,  1844.^  Yan  Buren's  triumph  seemed  complete. 
Even  those  who  did  not  want  to  hear  anything  at  all  of  him, 
now  declared  his  nomination  to  be  undoubted.' 

Yet  such  was  not  the  case.  It  was  too  well  loiown  how 
it  stood  with  his  alleged  popularity,*  to  permit  the  hope  of 
throwing  an  obstacle  in  his  way  to  be  easily  given  up.  On 
the  1st  of  May,  1844,  a  public  declaration  of  the  democratic 
members  of  Ohio  in  the  house  of  representatives  of  congress, 
denounced  an  intrigue  which  had  been  carried  on  "for 
weeks  "  in  Washington,  to  frustrate  Yan  Buren's  nomination 
spite  of  his  victory  in  the  election  of  delegates."  In  this, 
indeed,  the  question  of  persons  was  no  longer  the  determin- 
ing element;  this  had,  in  the  mean  time,  been  completely 
driven  into  the  background. 

'  Niles,  LXV,  p.  280. 
» Ibid.,  p.  372. 

•  "  .  .  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Van  Buren  will  be  nominated. 
We  had  hoped  it  would  be  otherwise ;  but  we  can  hope  no  longer. ' '  Brown- 
son's  Review,  April,  1844,  p.  261. 

*  "  .  .  When  he  [Van  Buren]  was  elected  governor  of  this  state  he  ran 
two  thousand  behind  the  popular  vote,  and  in  every  state  in  the  Union,  in 
1840,  he  ran  greatly  behind  his  ticket  and  the  admitted  strength  of  the 
party."    Niles,  LXV,  p.  42. 

•Tbid.,  LXVI,  p.  162. 


THE   TAEIFF   QUESTION.  529 

Differences  on  the  questions  which  were  still  considered 
officially  the  most  essential  dividing  lines  of  the  parties,  had 
existed  from  the  first,  side  by  side  with  the  contest  over  the 
question  of  persons.  In  the  first  place,  there  was  the  tariff. 
The  democrats  now  had  it  in  their  power  to  throw  the  pro- 
tective tariff  of  1842  again  immediately  overboard.  They  did 
not  do  so.  During  the  first  days  of  January,  1844,  the  south 
obtained  proof  that,  spite  of  the  great  democratic  majority, 
it  was  now,  as  well  as  before,  in  the  minority  in  this  respect 
Black,  of  Georgia,  made  a  motion  that  the  committee  on 
ways  and  means  should  be  instructed  to  introduce  a  bill  fix- 
ing the  entrance  duties  only  with  relation  to  the  revenue. 
This  motion  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of  eighty-four  against 
eighty- three,  and  the  majority  consisted  of  the  whig  minority 
and  thirty-seven  democrats.^  Hence,  much  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  total  number  of  democratic  members  were  not 
only  untrue  to  the  oflicial  party  principle  in  relation  to  indi- 
vidual economic  interests,  but  lent  the  whigs  their  coopera- 
tion to  reject  the  principle  of  the  pure  revenue  tariff.  The 
Globe,  indeed,  claimed  that  the  rejection  of  this  and  other 
resolutions  which  had  been  introduced  by  the  southern  rep- 
resentatives, warranted  no  conclusions  as  to  the  views  of  the 
house  on  the  question  proper.  It  only  did  not  want  to  an- 
ticipate its  committee.  But  the  consolation  did  not  last 
long.  The  new  tariff  bill  was  laid  on  the  table  by  a  vote  of 
one  hundred  and  five  against  ninety-nine;  that  is,  it  was 
jiractically  rejected.^ 

The  national  convention  at  Baltimore  took  to  heart  the 
lesson  which  this  vote  conveyed.  The  platform  only  denied 
the  government  of  the  Union  the  right  to  give  the  preference 
to  one  interest,  and  to  raise  more  revenue  than  was  necessary; 


'  Nfles,  LXV,  p.  311. 
•  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  140. 
84 


530  Jackson's  ADMINI8TBATI0N  —  aj^nexation  of  pexas. 

even  the  word  tariff  had  been  avoided.'  Tliese  phrases  every 
one  conld  interpret  as  he  wished.  And  this  was  intended. 
Yet  it  did  not  suffice.  The  presidential  candidate,  James  K. 
Polk,  of  Tennessee,  was  a  decided  free-trader.  As  a  member 
of  the  house  of  representatives,  he  had  always  been  an  oppo- 
nent of  all  protective  duties,  and  as  a  candidate  for  the  gov- 
ernorsliip  of  Tennessee,  in  the  year  1843,  he  had  always  de- 
manded a  return  to  the  stipulations  of  the  compromise  act.^ 
The  southern  free-traders  were,  therefore,  satisfied  with  his 
candidacy.  The  democratic  protectionists  of  the  north,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  all  the  more  concerned,  and  it  was  an 
unquestioned  fact  that  without  their  cooperation,  the  victory 
of  the  party  was  impossible.'  Polk,  however,  was  a  man 
who  could  laugh  with  one  side  of  his  face  and  weep  with  the 
other.  After  his  nomination,  on  the  19th  of  June,  1844,  he 
wrote  his  notorious  letter  to  John  K.  Kane,  of  Philadelphia. 
He  had  not,  it  is  plain,  changed  his  views  to  the  extent  of  a 

'Niles,  LXVr,  p.  227. 

*  "  He  was  opposed  to  direct  taxes,  and  to  prohibitory  and  protective  du- 
ties, and  in  favor  of  such  moderate  duties  as  would  not  cut  off  importations. 
In  other  words,  he  was  in  favor  of  reducing  the  duties  to  the  rates  of  the 
compromise  act,  where  the  whig  congress  found  them  on  the  30th  of  June, 
1842."  Speech  of  April  3, 1843,  at  Jackson.  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  234.  "  I 
had  steadily,  during  the  period  1  was  a  representative  in  congress,  been 
opposed  to  a  protective  pohcy,  as  my  recorded  votes  and  published  speeches 
prove.  Since  I  retired  from  congress  I  had  held  the  same  opinion.  In  the 
present  canvass  for  governor  I  had  avowed  my  opposition  to  the  tariff  act 
of  the  late  whig  congress,  as  being  highly  protective  in  its  character,  and 
not  designed  by  its  authors  as  a  revenue  measure.  I  had  avowed  my 
opinion  in  my  pubUc  speeches  that  the  interests  of  the  country,  and 
especially  of  the  producing  and  exporting  states,  required  its  repeal,  and  the 
restoration  of  the  principles  of  the  compromise  tariff  act  of  1833."  To  the 
people  of  Tennessee,  May  29,  1843.    Ibid.,  p.  343. 

'  Cameron,  of  Pennsylvania,  said,  1846,  in  the  senate:  "Much as  we  dis- 
liked Mr.  Clay,  and  sincerely  attached  as  we  were  to  the  democratic  party, 
all  would  have  gone  before  we  would  have  relinquished  the  tariff  of  1842." 
"Congr.  Globe,"  29th  Congr,,  1st  Sess.,  p.  1112. 


i^lk's  lettee  to  kaite.    .  631 

single  iota.  This,  in  and  of  itself,  was  not  only  almost  un- 
thinkable in  the  case  of  a  staunch  democrat,  but  it  would 
also  have  driven  away  the  southern  free-traders,  while  the 
question  was,  how  both  they  and  the  northern  protectionists 
might  be  won  over  at  the  same  time.  Polk,  therefore, 
was  now,  as  he  had  been  before,  a  decided  free-trader. 
Only,  for  the  south,  there  was  a  period  and  a  dash  calling  for 
a  suspension  of  thought,  after  the  word  ''free-trader,"  while 
for  the  north,  it  was  followed  by  the  sentence:  who  considers 
the  imposition  of  protective  duties  to  be  not  only  a  right 
but  a  duty  of  the  government  of  the  Union.' 

The  Calhounites  were  roused  to  indignation.  The  Charles- 
ton Mercury  directly  declared  that  Polk  had  gone  over,  bag 
and  baggage,  to  the  camp  of  the  protectionists.  As  early  as 
December,  1842,  the  legislature  of  South  Carolina  had  re- 
viled all  further  hope  in  congress  as  folly  and  disgraceful 
weakness.  It  now  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  of  1831  and  1832 
would  spring  into  life  again.  The  Charleston  Mercury^  which 
was  wont  to  be  considered  the  exponent  of  the  opinion  which 
prevailed  in  the  state,  and  which,  for  the  most  part,  ex- 
erted a  determining  influence  on  that  opinion,  and  in  a 
very  high  degree,  was  not  even  satisfied  with  what  had 
been  done  that  time.'  As  nullification  had  once  been  tried 
with  considerable  but  not  complete  success,  it  had  nothing 

'  '*  In  adjusting  the  details  of  a  revenue  tariff,  I  have  heretofore  sanc- 
tioned such  moderate  discriminating  duties  as  would  produce  the  amount 
of  revenue  needed,  and  at  the  same  time  afford  reasonable  incidental  pro- 
tection to  our  home  industry.  I  am  opposed  to  a  tariff  for  protection 
merely  and  not  for  revenue.  ...  In  my  judgment,  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  government  to  extend,  as  far  as  it  may  be  practicable  (!)  to  do  so,  by 
its  revenue  laws  and  all  other  means  within  its  power,  fair  and  just  protec- 
tion to  all  the  great  interests  of  the  whole  Union,  embracing  agfriculture, 
manufactures,  the  mechanic  arts,  commerce,  and  navigation."  Niles, 
LXVI,  p.  295. 

'  See  the  leading  article  printed  in  Niles'  Register,  under  the  title  "  Mani- 
festo," and  designated  "semi-official."    LXVi,  pp.  406-408. 


532  Jackson's  ADMiNisTBATioif  —  AinrEXATTON-  ot*  texas. 

to  say  in  opposition  to  another  experiment,  this  time  with 
"Isfpslative  nullification;"  onlj  the  people  should  devise 
further  measures  in  case  that  measure  proved  inadequate.* 
It  did  not  want  to  quarrel  ahout  the  details  of  the  how.  On 
one  thing  only  was  it  necessary  to  be  clear,  that  South  Caro- 
lina had  to  help  herself,  and  that  she  should  not  make  her 
resolves  dependent  on  others;  but  that  to  wait  for  a  conven- 
tion of  the  southern  states  and  its  measures  would  be  to  wait 
till  the  end  of  time.  And  this  language  was  tempeiate  in 
comparison  with  what  was  to  be  heard  at  all  kinds  of  meet- 
ings and  at  political  dinners.  But  the  author  of  the  most 
skillfully  worded,  pointed  and  defiant  threat,  was  the  hero 
of  the  day.' 

The  Calhonnites  wasted  their  wit  and  their  breath  in  over- 
spiced  speeches,  resolutions  and  toasts  against  the  tariff  pol- 
icy of  the  Union.  The  threats  frightened  nobody.  It  was 
considered  scarcely  worth  the  trouble  to  make  political 
capital  out  of  them,  and  they  were  looked  upon  only  as 
curiosities.  It  was  "  Ilamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out."  At 
the  head  of  the  agitation  stood  Holmes,  but  more  especially 
Khett;  Calhoun  did  not  take  part  in  it  and  disapproved  its 
violence.  A  thing  unheard  of,  that  of  the  numberless  toasts 
on  the  occasion  of  political  festivities,  not  a  single  one  was 
to  Calhoun,  was  now  a  frequent  fact.  For  the  first  time,  a 
large  number  of  his  disciples  went  much  further  than  their 
master.  This  was  a  fact  pregnant  with  meaning,  but  no  one 
now  had  time  to  reflect  on  it.  It  was  rightly  considered  u 
thing  unthinkable  that  South  Carolina  would,  on  account  of 

» '•  .  .  .  the  legislature  has  a  right  to  try  it;  while  the  people  are 
meditating  ulterior  measures  to  be  adopted  in  convention,  in  case  legisla- 
tive nullification  should  prove  inadequate." 

*Two  specimens  will  suffice  to  characterize  the  tone  of  the  toasts:  "  I'hc 
southern  states :  they  will  not  consent  to  be  pillaged  and  plundered  much 
longer,  for  the  benefit  of  their  worst  enemies."  "  Disunion  —  startle  not 
at  the  sound!  'to  this  complexion  it  must  come  at  last.'  "     Ibid.,  p.  340. 


EFFECT    OF   TUE   KANE   LETTER.  633 

the  tariff  question,  go  from  words  to  deeds  in  opposition  to 
Calhoun,  But  it  was  utterly  unthinkable  that  South  Caro- 
lina, in  a  scuffle  over  a  sparrow,  would  hold  the  arm  of  the 
slavocracj  at  the  moment  when  it  wanted  to  aim  its  master- 
shot  at  the  eagle.  Tlie  evil  letter  to  Kane  did  not  keep  the 
nine  electoral  votes  of  South  Carolina  from  being  cast  for 
Polk. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  twenty-six  electoral  votes  of  Penn- 
sylvania were  won  for  Polk  only  by  the  letter  to  Kane.* 
Tliere  were,  of  course,  among  the  democrats  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, people  who  were  wise  enough  to  perceive  how  heart- 
ily Polk  might  turn  them  into  ridicule,  if  they  thought  lie 
had  surrendered  himself  into  their  hands,  by  that  letter,  the 
two  halves  of  which  were  in  evident  contradiction  with  each 
other,  and  said  things  diametrically  opposed,  unless  it 
be  assumed  that  the  whole  was  only  a  series  of  words 
without  sense.  Hence,  some  of  the  democrats  called  for 
more  definite  declarations.  But  the  politicians  wrote  to 
Polk  to  remain  as  silent  as  the  grave,  because  the  Kane  let- 
ter was  doing  excellent  work.^    And  he  did  remain  silent. 

'  Cameron  said  in  the  senate:  "You  [Vice-President  Dallasl  and  I,  Mr. 
President,  remember  the  scenes  of  1844  in  our  state,  the  anxiety  that  per- 
vaded the  democratic  party  until  the  Kane  letter  made  its  appearance. 
That  letter  was  seized  upon  by  the  political  leaders,  was  used  upon  the 
stump,  was  translated  into  Grerman,  and  published  in  all  our  party  papers, 
English  and  German.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  that  letter  turned 
the  scale  and  decided  the  presidential  election.  But  for  it  you  would  not 
now  be  sitting  where  you  are,  nor  would  Mr,  Polk  be  occupying  the  pres- 
idential chsxir,"  Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  p,  238.  See,  also, 
Pollock's  speech  in  the  house  of  representatives.  Ck)ngr.  Globe,  29th  Congr., 
1st  Sess,,  Appendix,  pp,  716,  717. 

*  Clay  relates  in  a  letter  dated  August  4,  1847,  in  relation  to  "  the 
fraud  practiced  on  Pennsylvania  by  Uie  Kane  letter  ":  "In  further  sup- 
port of  this  fraud  I  learned  yesterday  from  the  honorable  Reverdy  John- 
son, that  during  the  canvass  of  1844,  when  some  interrogatories  were  ad- 
dressed from  your  state  to  Polk,  requesting  a  more  explicit  avowal  of  hia 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  tariff  of  1842,  Mr.  Buchanan  wrote  to  Tennessee 


534:  Jackson's  administratioit —  AmsrEXATiON  of  texas. 

«  Polk,  Dallas,  Shunk  ^  and  the  democratic  tariff  of  1842  "  ~ 
such  was  the  device  under  which  protective- tariff  Pennsyl- 
vania was  led  into  the  field  for  Polk,  the  freetrader.  Not 
only  was  the  whig  paternity  of  this  tariff  of  1842  contested, 
but  the  whigs  were  even  obliged  to  listen  to  the  accusa- 
tion that  they  desired  to  lay  hands  upon  it.  And  even  this 
was  not  enough.^  The  last  appeal  of  the  leading  democratic 
committee  of  Philadelphia,  furnished  the  interesting  proof, 
that  Clay  had  always  opposed  the  protection  of  American 
industry  by  high  duties.' 

The  history  of  the  Union  can  not  show  a  second  fraud  of 
equal  chimsiness  and  shamelessness.  The  deception  would 
scarcely  have  been  so  entirely  successful,  if  parties  had  not 
really  come  pretty  near  to  one  another,  so  that  the  extrem- 
ists on  both  sides  constituted  only  a  small  minority  of  their 
party.  There  certainly  was  a  political  calculation  in  the  fact 
that  the  whigs  too  again  formulated  their  confession  of  faith 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  enable  as  many  as  possible  from  the 
border  regions  of  their  opponents  to  join  them.*  Yet  what 
Clay  said  in  his  tour  throughthesouth,  that  American  indus- 
try no  longer  needed  protection  to  the  same  extent  as  formerly, 
was  in  harmony  with  the  facts  and  the  real  convictions  of  most 

that  the  Kane  letter  was  working  well,  and  begging  that  those  interroga- 
tories might  not  be  answered,  and  Mr.  Polk  accordingly  remained  silent." 
v'riv.  Con-esp.,  p.  644.  Bucliauan  was  made  secretary  of  state  by  Polk, 
Kane  judge  of  the  United  States  court  in  Philadelphia,  and  McCandless, 
tlir  third  in  the  alliance,  judge  of  the  United  States  court  in  Pittsburg. 
'  The  candidate  for  the  governorship. 

*  *■  We  dare  the  whigs  to  repeal  it." 

•  Tht  appeal  is  printed  in  Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  p.  237. 
See,  als(.,  Mcllvaine's  speech  of  June  18,  1846,  in  the  house  of  representa- 
tives.   l>.ngr.  Globe,  29th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  p.  994. 

*Tht  platform  demands:  "  A  tariff  for  revenue  to  defray  the  necessary 
esqjensc?  ot  Vhe  government,  and  discriminating  with  special  reference  to 
thp  prot<^hOi\  of  the  domestic  labor  of  the  country."    Niles,  LXVI,  p. 

ua 


THE  BANK   QUESTION   IN   THE   CAMPAIGN.  535 

of  the  whigs,  even  if  the  assurance  he  gave  that  the  requisite 
protection  could  be  afforded  within  the  limits  of  a  revenue 
tariff  went  a  step  beyond  his  real  convictions.^  The  Kane 
letter,  without  any  embellishing  additions  and  nonsensical 
exaggerations,  could,  therefore,  be  turned  to  best  account 
wherever  Polk's  past  in  relation  to  the  tariff  question  gave 
umbrage  to  the  democrats.  The  Albany  Argus  thought  that 
the  protectionist  democrats  should  surely  be  satisfied,  since 
Polk  had  taken  the  same  attitude  as  Clay.''  Not  only  the 
Albany  Argus^  but  every  politician,  well  knew,  that  dif- 
ferent as  the  views  of  Clay  and  Polk  on  the  best  tariff  policy 
were,  the  formulas  under  which  they  entered  the  electoral  cam- 
paign were  in  fact  nearly  identical.  The  future  unquestiona- 
bly brought  with  it  many  a  hard  contest  between  protection- 
ists and  freetraders.  But  this  opposition,  which  had  been  so 
thoroughly  stifled  as  early  as  1840,  was  found  of  almost 
no  use  in  this  presidential  election,  because  the  parties  would 
not  allow  it  to  divide  them  entirely. 

The  second  great  economic  question  had  become  unavail- 
able for  the  purposes  of  the  electoral  campaign  in  a  still 
higher  degree.  The  democrats  could  not  be  reproached  with 
any  ambiguity  in  respect  to  it.  Their  platform  roundly  de- 
clared a  national  bank  to  be  unconstitutional  and  pernicious 
in  the  highest  degree.  Their  opponents,  indeed,  sought  to 
cast  suspicion  on  their  honesty  because  they  had  selected 
Dallas,  who  had,  so  to  speak,  stood  godfather*  to  the  old 
bank,  as  their  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency.  Dallas, 
however,  gave  his  definite  promise  not  to  assist  in  any  way  in 
the  establishment  of  a  new  bank.  Greatly  as  promises  made 
by  candidates  had  fallen  into  discredit,  there  was  certainly 

'  NUes,  LXVI,  pp.  105,  106. 

••'On  the  tarifiF,  Messrs.  Polk  and  Clay  occupy  the  same  platform." 
Ibid,  p.  407. 
» Compare  NUes,  LXVI,  pp.  26^267. 


536  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  op  texas. 

no  reason  for  distrust  this  time,  for  even  the  whigs  no  longer 
dared  to  ask  for  a  bank  In  a  speech  at  Ealeigh,  Clay,  in- 
deed, expressed  the  conviction  that  the  demand  would  be 
again  made  by  the  people.  He  might  not  yet  have  com- 
pletely given  up  hope,  but  it  was  evident  that  with  this  he 
did  not  so  much  desire  to  announce  the  near  resumption  of 
the  old  battle,  as  to  defend  himself  and  his  party.  This 
declaration  was  preceded  by  the  assurance  tliat  he  would 
urge  the  establishment  of  a  bank  only  when  it  was  impera- 
tively demanded  by  the  people.^  The  platform  of  the  whigs 
did  not  go  even  as  far  as  Clay.  It  avoided  the  word  "bank" 
entirely.''  This  was  a  severe  humiliation.  It  was  the  virtual 
admission  that  the  politicians  of  the  party,  in  their  fight 
against  Tyler  and  the  bank,  had  become  guilty  of  unworthy 
exaggerations  and  conscious  untruth.  They  had  placed  the 
president  in  the  pillory  because,  spite  of  the  obligations 
assumed  by  his  acceptance  of  the  candidacy,  he  insolently 
opposed  the  wish  of  the  people  emphatically  expressed  by 
Harrison's  and  his  own  election,  for  a  bank;  and  now  they 
were  obliged  to  confess:  the  less  we  say  to  the  people  about 
a  bank  the  better  for  ourselves.  A  bank  in  the  old  sense  of 
the  word  was  a  thing  settled  forever.' 

•  "Such  are  my  views  of  the  question  of  establishing  a  bank  of  the 
United  States,  .  .  .  but  I  do  not  seek  to  enforce  them  on  any  others. 
Above  all,  I  do  not  desire  any  bank  of  the  United  States  attempted  or 
established,  unless  and  until  it  is  imperatively  demanded,  as  I  believe 
demanded  it  will  be,  by  the  opinion  of  the  people."  Ibid.,  p.  299.  It 
deserves  to  be  mentioned  that,  according  to  Wise's  account,  Clay,  in  1838, 
is  said  to  have  promised  Judge  White  to  let  the  bank  question  rest  during 
the  next  presidential  teim  (1841-1845).    Seven  Decades,  pp.  168,  169. 

*It  only  asserts  the  principle:  "A  well  regulated  national  currency." 
Niles,  LXVI,  p.  148. 

*  Webster  says,  as  early  as  September  30,  1842,  in  a  speech  at  Boston: 
"  A  bank  of  the  United  States  founded  on  a  private  subscription  is  out  of 
the  question.  That  is  an  obsolete  idea.  The  country  and  the  condition  of 
thmgs  have  changed.    Suppose  that  a  bank  were  chartered  with  a  capital 


THB   SLAVKKT   QUESTION.  537 

In  what  then  did  the  essential  difference  between  the  par- 
ties consist?  The  fundamental  direction  of  their  political 
views  had  remained  the  same;  but  there  was  an  absence  of 
concrete  problems  in  respect  to  which  the  more  confederate- 
like and  the  more  federal-like  views  might  assert  themselves. 
If  we  keep  only  the  old  parties  and  the  old  programme  with 
which  they  had  come  into  existence,  and  which  they  had  thus 
far  represented,  in  view,  the  question  as  to  the  persons  of  the 
candidates  appears,  on  closer  examination,  to  be  unquestion- 
ably the  most  material  turning  point  of  the  battle.  But 
if  we  look  beyond  this  striving  for  supremacy,  simply  for 
supremacy's  sake,  we  perceive  on  all  sides  a  rapidly  progress- 
ing intensification  of  differences,  not,  however,  on  the  ground 
of  the  party  programme  hitherto,  but  on  that  of  the  slavery 
question.  For  the  first  time,  now,  the  extreme  abolitionists 
drew  the  last  logical  inferences  from  their  premises.  In 
May,  1844,  the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society,  in  its  yearly 
meeting,  proclaimed  the  principle:  "No  community  with 
slaveholders,"  and  rejected  the  constitution  as  "  a  covenant 
with  death,  and  an  agreement  with  hell."'  And  even  dur- 
ing the  previous  year,  the  moderate  portion  of  the  political 
abolitionists  had  taken  a  step  in  advance  which  seemed  to 
drag  them  also  into  an  entirely  revolutionary  course.     In 

of  fifty  millions  to  be  raised  by  private  subscription.  Would  it  not  be  out 
of  all  possibility  to  find  the  money?  Who  would  subscribe?  What  would 
you  get  for  shares?  .  .  .  People  who  are  waiting  for  power  to  make  a 
bank  of  the  United  States  may  as  well  postpone  all  attempts  to  benefit  the 
country  to  the  incoming  of  the  Jews."  Works,  II,  pp,  135,  136.  Curtis 
gives  us  a  manuscript  of  Webster's  of  the  year  1843,  discovered  by  him, 
in  which  we  read:  "  Who  cares  anything  now  about  the  bank  bills  which 
were  vetoed  in  1841?  Or  who  thinks  now  that,  if  there  were  no  such 
a  thing  as  a  veto  in  the  world,  a  bank  of  the  United  States,  upon  the  old 
models,  could  be  established?  "    Life  of  D.  Webster,  II,  p.  208. 

'"A  covenant  with  death,  and  an  agreement  with  hell."  Goodell,  who 
did  not  belong  to  this  group  of  aboUtiouists,  says:  "  This  was  a  memorable 
revolution  in  the  society  and  its  policy."    Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,  p.  527. 


538  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

August,  1843,  tlie  liberty  party  had  held  a  "  national  con- 
vention "  in  Buffalo,  in  which  all  the  free  states,  with  the 
exception  of  ISTew  Hampshire,  were  represented.  In  the  com- 
mittee on  resolutions,  the  clergyman,  John  Pierpont,  of 
Massachusetts,  moved  that  they  should  formally  absolve 
themselves  from  obedience  to  the  provision  of  the  constitu- 
tion in  relation  to  the  surrender  of  fugitive  slaves.'  Chase,  of 
Ohio,  effected  the  rejection  of  the  resolution  in  the  commit- 
tee; but  during  his  absence,  Pierpont  laid  it  before  the  conven- 
tion itself,  and  the  convention  adopted  it  without  discussion.' 
These  were  signs  of  the  times  which  spoke  with  a  terrible 
plainness.  But  the  time  was  long  since  passed  when  only  the 
signs  of  the  rapid  approach  of  the  inevitable  collision  in- 
creased. Conflicts  had  begun  to  take  place  years  before,  be- 
tween the  legal  authorities  of  the  north  and  of  the  south. 
Yirginia,  in  1839,  had  demanded  of  "New  York  the  surrender 
of  three  colored  sailors  who  were  charged  with  having 
"stolen"  a  slave,  that  is,  with  having  helped  him  to  flee. 
Governor  Seward  refused  the  request,  for  the  reason  that  the 
provision  of  the  constitution  in  question  had  to  be  so  under- 
stood, that  the  states  would  have  to  surrender  fugitives  ac- 
cused of  an  offense  considered  a  "crime"  not  only  in  the 
state  asking  for  the  surrender,  but  also  in  the  state  called 
upon  to  make  the  surrender.  This  condition  was  not  found 
in  the  case  in  hand.  The  laws  of  New  York  were  indeed 
acquainted  with  the  crime  of  kidnapping,  but,  according  to 
them,  it  was  impossible  that  a  person  could  be  stolen  by  an- 
other in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  was  employed  by  Yir- 
ginia, because,  according  to  them,  no  human  being  could  own 
another.     The  executive  of  Yirginia  contested  absolutely  the 

'  "  To  regard  and  treat  the  third  clause  of  the  constitution,  whenever  ap- 
plied to  the  case  of  a  fugitive  slave,  as  utterly  null  and  void ;  and  conse- 
quently as  forming  no  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  when- 
ever we  are  called  upon  or  sworn  to  support  it," 

« Warden,  The  Private  Life  and  Public  Services  of  S.  P.  Chase,  p.  300. 


THE   SLAVERY   QUESTION.  639 

correctness  of  this  view,  and  represented  it  as  a  monstrosity. 
The  controversy  was  carried  on  in  different  forms  for  over 
two  years,*  and  attracted  a  vast  deal  of  attention.  Adams 
declared  it  to  be  more  important  than  all  other  questions  in 
dispute  taken  together,'^  and  blamed  Seward  for  the  tameness 
of  his  tone.'  Seward  certainly  was  studiously  very  temper- 
ate in  his  language,  did  not  permit  himself  to  be  provoked 
to  passion  by  the  challenging  sallies  of  his  opponents,  avoided 
all  general,  moral  and  politico-philosopliical  considerations, 
and  kept  strictly  to  the  discussion  of  the  question  of  law  — 
but  he  did  not  yield  in  the  matter.  Yirginia  made  attempts 
at  retaliation,  and  refused  to  surrender  a  forger  at  the  request 
of  New  York;  it  passed  a  law  insulting  to  the  citizens  of 
New  York,*  yet  did  not  allow  it  to  go  into  force  immediately, 
but  fixed  a  last  day  for  New  York  up  to  which  its  pater  pec- 
cam  should  be  accepted  and  pardon  granted  it.  It  was  all  in 
vain ;  Seward  and  New  York  remained  firm.  And  the  blow 
dealt  the  slavocracy  was  doubly  heavy,  because  it  had  been 
dealt  with  its  own  weapons.  With  the  principles  of  state 
sovereignty,  by  means  of  which  it  had  obtained  supremacy 
over  the  Union,  it  was  now  driven  from  the  ground  ^  which 


*  Seward's  Works,  11,  pp.  449-518.    Niles,  passim. 

•  *'  I  said  there  was  another  subject  which  I  deemed  of  more  vital  im- 
portance to  the  Union  than  the  bank,  the  tariff,  the  cmrency,  or  the  land 
and  state  debts  question,  or  than  all  of  them  together;  and  that  was  the 
controversy  between  the  states  of  New  York  and  Virginia,  and  the  slaveiy 
question  generally."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  X,  p.  461. 

•  "  The  coirespondence  between  the  governors  of  New  York  and  Vir- 
ginia .  .  .  is  of  awful  import.  Its  most  alarming  feature  is  the  tame- 
ness of  tone  on  the  part  of  W.  H.  Seward,  the  governor  of  New  York,  and 
the  insolence  of  Hopkins,  the  lieutenant-governor,  and  of  Gilmer,  the  gov- 
ernor of  Virginia,  throughout  the  whole  correspondence."   Ibid.,  X,  p.  401. 

*  "  An  act  to  prevent  the  citizens  of  New  York  from  carrying  slaves  out 
of  the  commonwealth  of  Virginia,  and  to  prevent  the  escape  of  personB 
charged  with  any  crime." 

* ".    .    .    No  person  can  maintain  more  firmly  than  I  do  the  principle 


640  Jackson's  administbation — annexation  of  texas, 

it  had  become  accustomed  to  consider  won  and  secured  to  it 
forever.  For  there  was  question  not  of  a  single  case  but  of 
a  principle,  and  the  repugnance  to  do  bailiff-service  for  the 
slave-holders  threatened  to  seize  upon  the  whole  north. 
About  the  same  time  Maine  had  an  entirely  similar  contro- 
versy with  Georgia,  which  appealed  in  vain  from  the  decisive 
answer  of  governors  Dunlap  and  Kent  to  the  legislature.' 

Massachusetts  did  not  lag  behind  New  York  and  Maine. 
On  the  23d  of  March,  1848,  the  legislature  resolved  to  move 
through  the  representatives  of  the  state  in  congress,  an  amend- 
ment to  the  constitution,  basing  the  representation  in  congress 
on  the  free  population  only  of  the  states.^  The  complaints  on 
the  compromise  of  the  constitution,  in  respect  to  the  fixing  of 
the  quota  of  representation,'^  were  as  old  as  the  constitution 
itself,  and  had  been  frequently  repeated.  But  by  degrees 
this  compromise  acquired,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  people, 
the  character  almost  of  an  unchangeable  law  of  nature,  so  that 
the  motion  of  Massachusetts  now  appeared  as  an  aggressive 
demonstration  of  the  boldest  kind.     Adams  calls  the  debates 

that  the  states  are  sovereign  and  independent  in  regard  to  all  matters,  ex- 
cept tliose  in  relation  to  which  sovereignty  has  been  expressly,  or  by  neces- 
sary implication,  transferred  to  the  Federal  government  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  I  have  at  least  believed  that  my  non-compliance 
with  the  requisition  made  upon  me,  in  the  present  case,  would  be  regarded 
as  maintaining  the  equal  sovereignty  and  independence  of  this  state,  and 
by  necessary  consequence  those  of  all  the  other  states,"  Sewai-d's  letter 
of  the  24th  of  October,  1839. 

'  How  embittered  the  slavocrats  were,  the  following  passage  from  the 
message  of  the  governor  of  Georgia  to  the  legislature  shows:  "For  this 
purpose  [to  secure  slave-ownership]  you  will  be  justified  in  declaring,  by 
law,  that  all  citizens  of  Maine  who  may  come  within  the  jurisdiction  of  this 
state,  on  board  of  any  vessels,  as  owners,  officers,  or  marinere,  shall  be  con- 
sidered as  doing  so  with  the  intent  to  commit  the  crime  of  seducing  negro 
slaves  from  their  owners,  and  be  dealt  with  accordingly  by  the  officers  of  jus- 
tice."   Hazard,  U.  S.  Com.  and  Stat.  Reg.,  Feb.,  1840,  Vol.  II,  p.  101. 

'  ITie  resolution  is  pnnted  in  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  58. 

•See  Vol.  1. 


THE   QUESTION   OP   BEPEESENTATION.  541 

which  the  resolution  called  forth  in  the  honse  of  representa- 
tives the  most  memorable  which  had  ever  taken  place  there.' 
No  one  of  course  expected  a  practical  result,  but  a  sharp, 
shrill  stroke  of  the  i51e  had  been  given  the  chains  which  the 
slavocracy  had  imposed  on  the  Union.  The  speeches  of  the 
southern  representatives  on  the  resolution  were  pitched  on 
an  entirely  different  key.  As  if  seized  with  pain  and  shaken 
with  horror,  they  discussed  the  theme:  the  hideous  has  come 
to  pass;  on  your  heads  rests  the  responsibility!  There  was 
much  comedy  in  this,  but  also  much  honest  seriousness.  In 
the  north,  as  well  as  in  the  south,  people  said  to  one  another, 
with  eyes  wide  open  and  significant  nodding  of  the  head: 
"  Yes,  and  in  the  two  houses  of  the  legislature  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  democrats  have  the  majority!" 

The  south  could  no  longer  calculate  with  full  confidence 
on  the  support  of  the  democrats  of  the  north —  a  fact  of 
immense  importance.  As  in  the  legislature  of  Massachu- 
setts, so  also  now  in  the  honse  of  representatives,  the  demo- 
crats had  the  majority,  and  now  the  hour  of  the  gag-rule  had 
come.  On  the  15th  of  April,  1842,  Adams  had  painfully 
exclaimed  that  it  drove  the  Union  rapidly  towards  disso- 
lution.'* At  that  time,  Campbell,  of  South  Carolina,  had 
declared  that  the  whole  constitution  would  have  to  bend 
before  it.^     And  yet  Adams  was  certain  of  victory.     If  tlie 

'  "  And  now  sprang  up  the  most  memorable  debate  ever  entertained  in 
the  honae.  .  .  .  The  crisis  now  requires  of  me  coohiess,  firmness,  pru- 
dence, moderation  and  fortitude,  beyond  all  former  example.  I  came 
home  in  such  a  state  of  agitation  that  I  could  do  nothing  but  pace  my 
chamber."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  455. 

•Niles,  LXIT.p.  137. 

'  ••  This  is  a  question  to  us  of  self-preservation,  that  rises  above  all  writ- 
ten or  constitutional  law.  The  assassin's  dagger  is  aimed  at  our  hearts. 
Shall  we  bare  our  bosoms  to  receive  the  stroke,  or  shall  we  manfuUy  resist? 
Do  not,  gentlemen,  allow  the  rights  of  your  constitutents  to  hold  their 
property  to  be  discussed  on  this  floor.    If  you  do,  their  bloody  hearthstones 


54-2  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  op  texas. 

south  still,  for  a  while,  found  a  loop-hole,  at  the  very  last 
moment,  the  voting  even  now  was  repeatedly  in  Adams's 
favor.  In  March,  1844,  Clingman,  of  North  Carolina,  was 
able  to  refute  the  allegation  that  he  and  the  southern  whigs, 
who,  like  him,  condemned  the  gag-rule,  had  killed  it,  by  the 
simple  reference  to  the  fact  that  of  eighty  northern  demo- 
crats only  thirteen  had  voted  for  its  continuance.^  Spite  of 
this,  Adams's  hopes  were  once  more  deceived,  but  deceived 
for  the  last  time.  The  Richmond  ^7^2'w^V«/•,  the  fieriest  and 
most  influential  battler  for  Yan  Buren  in  the  south,  threat- 
ened the  democrats  of  New  York  that  it  would  drop  him  if 
they  would  not  advocate  the  gag-rule,  and  the  threat  was  of 
avail.*    This  lasted  until  the  convention  in  Baltimore,  but 

may  hereafter  tell  the  tale  of  your  folly  and  tiieir  misfortune."  Ibid., 
p.  171. 

'  "  The  leading  speech  against  the  twenty-first  rule,  as  it  is  commonly 
called,  was  made  by  a  gentleman  from  New  York  (Mr.  Beardsley),  gener- 
ally understood  all  over  the  north  to  be  high  in  the  confidence  of  Mr.  Van 
Buren,  and  supposed  to  represent  his  views;  and  the  democratic  papers  in 
New  York  and  elsewhere  claim  great  credit  on  this  account  for  their  party, 
saying  that  this  democratic  congress  is  opposed  to  the  gag-rule  of  the  whig 
congress.  Though  our  opponents  have  two  to  one  on  this  floor,  yet,  when 
we  get  them  to  a  direct  vote,  the  rule  is  defeated  by  a  large  majority.  Out 
of  near  eighty  democratic  members  from  the  free  states,  with  all  possible 
coaxing,  they  can  g6t  only  thirteen  to  vote  in  favor  of  the  rule."  Niles, 
LXVI,  p.  135. 

*  January  2,  1844:  "  I  told  Beardsley  that  the  action  of  the  house  upon 
the  gag  would  depend  entirely  upon  the  perseverance  of  the  twenty-seven 
members  of  the  New  York  delegation,  and  that  I  was  told  the  "  Eich- 
moud  Enquirer"  had  threatened  that  if  they  did  persevere.  Van  Buren's 
claim  to  tlie  presidency  would  be  forfeited. 

"  He  admitted  the  fact,  and  said  that  he  hoped  the  members  would  not 
be  moved  by  any  such  consideration;  two  or  three  weak-minded  men 
might  be." 

February  7,  1844:  "The  New  York  democrats  have  been  whipped  in 
by  the  threat  that  the  south  will  desert  Van  Buren  if  his  fi-iends  join  to 
rescind  the  rule,  with  a  promise  of  Callioun  and  his  party  to  support  Van 
Buren  if  the  rule  is  retained  and  the  tariflp  broken  down."  Mem.  of  J.  Q. 
Adams,  XI,  pp.  468,  505. 


MEPEAL   OF   THE   GAChKTJLB.  543 

no  longer.  The  northern  democrats  took  the  bit  between 
their  teeth,  and  could  no  longer  be  controlled.  On  the  3d  of 
December,  1844,  the  25th  (at  the  beginning  the  21st,  and 
later  the  23d)  rule  was  repealed  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred 
and  eight  against  eighty. 

While  the  political  parties,  with  their  otherwise  very  loose 
coherency,  threatened  to  fall  completely  asunder  under  the 
weight  of  the  slavery  question,  the  threads  which  held  the 
north  and  the  south  together  began  to  break  even  in  non- 
political  life.     If  it  were  fated  that  the  Union  should  be  bro- 
ken up  in  case  the  political  parties  became  geographically  con- 
solidated, its  continued  existence  became  doubly  impossible 
if,  simultaneously,  the  same  geographical  line  was  to  become 
a  partition  in  the  ethico-religious  life  of  the  people.     It  could 
never  become  such  a  partition  entirely,  because  the  people, 
from  a  religious  point  of  view,  were  divided  into  too  many 
small  groups.     This  diversity  of  church  organizations  did  not 
permit  the  manifestation  of  opposition  in  this  sphere,  in  many 
places,  to  become  too  strongly  developed,  and  in  others  it  was 
covered  up  to  such  an  extent  that  it  remained  unconscious, 
or,  at  least,  did  not  find  expression  outwardly.     The  very 
orsranization  of  those  churches  which  had  taken  the  strongest 
stand  against  slavery,  such  as  the  Unitarian  and  Congrega- 
tional, were  so  firmly  based  on  the  principle  of  local  inde- 
pendence, that  they  could  not  properly  be  held  responsible  in 
their  solidarity  for  the  views  and  actions  of  the  separate 
congregations.     Only  a  few  churches,  such  especially  as  the 
Presbyterian,  Methodist  and  Episcopal,  had,  in  this  sense,  a 
national  character.     In  the  case  of  the  latter,  therefore,  the 
separative  power  of  slavery  asserted  itself.' 

The  Presbyterian  church  divided,  in  1838,  into  the  old 
school  and  the  new  school.    The  ostensible  ground  of  sepa- 

'  In  the  Episcopal  church,  howerer,  no  formal  separation  took  place,  to 
my  knowledge,  even  during  the  dvil  war. 


544:  Jackson's  administe ation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ration  was,  indeed,  divergent  views  as  to  certain  doctrines  of 
the  church,  and  hence  the  division  was  not  strictly  geograph- 
icah  But  every  one  knew  that  actually  the  slavery  question 
was  one  of  the  principal  causes  of  the  quarrel.  The  new 
scliool,  whieh  was  only  weakly  represented  in  the  south,  took 
the  position  which  favored  freedom  most.  But  even  it  kept 
very  much  aloof  from  all  very  radical  opinions.  The  more 
intense  the  general  conflict  became,  the  more  cautious  did 
the  attitude  of  its  general  assembly  become,  and  the  greater 
emphasis  did  it  place  on  the  necessity  of  Christian  love  and 
forbearance.  Yet  it  never  ceased  to  bear  testimony  to  the  sin- 
fulness of  slavery.^  The  general  assembly  of  the  old  school, 
on  the  other  hand,  adopted  the  policy  of  the  ostrich :  when 
the  slavery  question  was  mentioned  it  shut  its  eyes  and  stuck 
its  head  in  the  sand.  If  it  did  not  precisely  plead  for  slav- 
ery, it  thought  that  it  could  not  be  a  sin  under  all  circum- 
stances, since,  otherwise,  the  apostles  would  have  to  be  accused 
of  having  winked  at  this  sin.'^  This  position  was  surely 
chosen  as  cautiously  and  with  as  much  policy  as  was  possible. 
And  yet  the  old  school  was,  for  a  time,  in  danger  of  seeing 
its  bark  break  to  pieces  on  this  rock.  But  finally  their 
pastors  were  able  to  pitch  their  song  of  praise  of  the  "  moral 
sublimity,"  with  which  they  had  happily  oiled  the  church 
through  between  the  two  millstones,  in  the  highest  key.^ 

It  caused  an  incomparably  greater  sensation  when,  after 
the  general  assembly  of  1844,  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church  divided  into  a  northern  and  a  southera.  These  two 
organizations  did  not  actually  correspond  entirely  as  to  terri- 
tory with  the  free  and  the  slaveholding  states;  but  that  this 

'  See  Alb.  Barnes,  The  Church  and  Slavery,  pp.  147,  148. 

'  Goodell,  Slavery  and  Anti-Slavery,  p.  166.  See  the  principles  of  the 
old  school,  laid  down  in  1845  by  the  general  assembly,  in  Stanton,  The 
Church  and  the  Rebellion,  pp.  382-384. 

'See  J.  Robinson,  The  Testimony  and  Practice  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  reference  to  American  Slavery,  pp.  114-117. 


CHURCH    DIVISIONS.  545 

was  nearly  the  case  is  evident  from  the  very  names.  More- 
o  .er,  this  division  was  brought  about  very  directly  and  con- 
fessedly by  the  slavery  question.  And  here  also  there  was 
no  question  of  radicalism.  Tlie  northern  portion  did  not 
want  to  prohibit  all  p.eachei-s  but  only  the  bishops  holding 
slaves,  and  it  was  not  the  northern  but  the  southern  portion 
which  caused  the  separation.'  But  the  essential  matter  was 
not  on  what  definite  points  opinions  differed.  The  import- 
ant thing  was  the  fact  itself  that  a  difference  on  the  slavery 
question  tore  the  church  asunder.  Adams  is  reported  to 
have  said  that  the  strength  of  the  anti-slavery  movement  was 
proved  more  convincingly  by  this  act,  than  by  any  previous 
event.'  Tlie  south,  on  its  side,  declared  later  that  the  slav- 
ocracy,  by  the  happy  emancipation  of  the  southern  churches 
from  the  north,  had,  for  the  first  time,  made  it  possible  for 
itself  to  carry  the  struggle  for  its  interest  to  the  point  of 
breaking  up  the  Union.'  And  Clay,  who  was  ready  to  sac- . 
rifice  everything  for  the  one  great  end,  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  now  most  anxiously  asked  himself  whether  this 
disruption  of  the  Methodist  church  was  not,  after  all,  the 
precursor  of  the  disruption  of  the  Union.* 

'  According  to  the  description  of  the  "  Trae  Wesleyan,"  dted  by  Goodell. 
Slavery  and  anti-Slavery,  pp.  149,  150. 

' "...  he  [Adams]  is  said  to  have  assured  his  son,  at  the  time  the 
Methodist  Church  broke  asunder,  that  other  men  might  be  more  startled 
by  the  eclat  of  political  success,  but  nothing,  in  his  opinion,  promised  more 
good,  or  showed  more  clearly  the  real  strength  of  the  antislavery  move- 
ment, than  that  momentous  event."  W.  PhQlips,  Speeches,  Lectures,  and 
liCtters,  p.  123. 

*The  "  Southern  Presbyterian  '  writes:  "Much  as  is  due  to  many  of  our 
sagacious  and  gifted  pohticians,  they  could  effect  nothing  until  the  reli- 
gious union  of  the  north  and  south  was  dissolved,  nor  until  they  received 
the  moral  support  and  coOperation  of  southern  Christians."  Stanton,  The 
Church  and  the  Rebellion,  p.  193. 

*  H.  Clay  to  Dr.  Booth,  April  7,  1845:  "  It  was,  therefore,  with  the  deep- 
est regret  that  I  heard,  in  the  course  of  the  past  year,  of  the  danger  of  a 
35 


546   Jackson's  a.dministeation — annexation  of  texas. 

With  the  Kentuckian,  to  whom  his  own  nature  and  even 
the  geographical  situation  of  his  state  pointed  out  as  his  real 
life  task,  the  role  of  the  mediator,  hope  still  preponderated 
over  fear.  What  was  the  real  foundation  of  this  hope,  if  the 
prophecy  of  Silas  Wright  and.  Daniel  Dickinson  was  veri- 
fied, and  the  victory  of  the  democrats  in  this  presidential 
election  led  to  a  fusion  of  the  whigs  and  abolitionists  as  a 
liberty  party,  which  played  "  white  "  against "  black  "  ?  ^  And 
when  the  course  and  the  state  of  the  process  of  dissolution 
of  the  national  parties  was  as  accurately  known  as  it  was  to 
the  two  politicians  of  l^ew  York,  was  there  any  need  of  divine 
inspiration,  or  was  political  acumen  sufficient  to  recognize  that 
the  development  of  things  tended  powerfully  in  that  direction? 

The  prophecy  was  not,  indeed,  fulfilled  to  the  very  letter. 
The  new  constellation  required  as  many  years  yet  for  its 
formation  as  Wright  and  Dickinson  had  given  it  months, 
and  the  initiative  to  it  was  taken  by  the  very  opposite  side. 
Kot  by  the  whigs  was  white  played  against  black,  but  black 

division  of  tlie  church,  in  consequence  of  a  difference  of  opinion  existing  on 
the  delicate  and  unhappy  subject  of  slavery.  A  division,  for  such  a  cause, 
would  be  an  event  greatly  to  be  deplored,  both  on  account  of  the  church  itself 
and  its  political  tendency.  Indeed  scaroely  any  public  occurence  has  hap- 
pened for  a  long  time  that  gave  me  so  much  real  concern  and  pain  as  the 
menaced  separation  of  the  church,  by  a  line  throwing  all  the  free  states  on 
one  side,  and  all  the  slave  states  on  the  other. 

"  I  will  not  say  that  such  a  separation  would  necessarily  produce  a  dis- 
solution of  the  political  union  of  these  states;  but  the  example  would  be 
fraught  with  imminent  danger,  and,  in  cooperation  with  other  causes  un- 
fortunately existing,  its  tendency  on  the  stability  of  the  confederacy  would 
be  perilous  and  alarming."  Clay,  Priv.  Corresp.  p.  525.  See,  also,  the 
report  on  "  Interview  with  Rev.  Dr.  Hill  of  Louisville,  Ky.,"  "Anti-slavery 
Standard,"  July  14,  1860. 

'  Mr.  Wright  to  Mr.  Dickinson,  October  9, 1844:  "  You  are  doubtless  right 
that  the  next  phase  of  federalism  is  to  f)e,  to  drop  the  names  of  '  Whig ' 
and  '  Abolitionist,'  and  adopt  that  of  '  Liberty  Party,'  and  try  us  under  a 
banner  of  black  and  white,  that  is,  if  we  beat  them  now."  Speeches,  Cor- 
respondence, etc.,  of  the  late  Dan.  S.  Dickinson,  II,  p.  372. 


DEATH    OF   UPSHUB   AND   GILMEE.  547 

against  wliite  by  the  democrats,  as  the  adherents  of  the  slavoc- 
racy.  The  slavery  question  continued  uninterruptedly  and 
in  dreadfully  accelerated  time  to  make  the  rent  in  the  na- 
tional life  wider,  and  to  extend  it  on  every  side;  but  the 
powerful  new  impulse  which  it  received,  in  this  direction,  put, 
at  the.same  time,  a  check  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  demo- 
cratic party,  and  surrounded  it  firmly  with  a  new  band.  Its 
old  programme  had  become  a  historical  recollection;  it 
henceforth  wore  the  cockade  of  the  slavocracy. 

On  the  2Sth  of  February,  1844,  the  cannon  Peacemaker 
burst  on  the  ship  Princeton,  and  scattered  death  among  the 
crew  and  the  invited  guests.  Among  the  dead  were  two 
members  of  Tyler's  cabinet,  Upshur  and  Gilmer.  The  south- 
ern members  of  the  "  kitchen  cabinet "  and  the  "  corporal's 
guard  "  now  urged  the  president  to  place  Calhoun,  as  secre- 
tary of  state,  at  the  head  of  the  cabinet.  Wise,  however, 
had  had  the  unparalleled  shamelessness  behind  the  presi- 
dent's back,  but  as  if  acting  under  his  orders,  to  invite  Cal- 
houn immediately,  through  a  confidential  person,  to  accept 
the  secretaryship  of  state.  Tyler  submitted.'  Calhoun  ac- 
cepted, declaring  that  he  would  resign  the  office  as  soon  as 
the  one  object  which  had  determined  him  to  accept  it,  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  was  attained. 

'  See  the  report  at  length,  by  Wise  himself.    Seven  Decades,  pp.  221-225. 


548  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TEXAS. 

The  treaty  of  April  30,  1803,  by  which  the  United  States 
acquired  the  Louisiana  territory  by  purchase  from  France, 
said  nothing  of  its  extent,  except  tliat  it  was  the  territory 
which  Spain  had  ceded  to  France  in  the  treaty  of  San  Ilde- 
fonso  (October  1,  1800).^  The  consequence  of  this  was  a 
long  and  bitter  controversy  between  Spain  and  the  Union, 
concerning  the  limits  of  the  territory  ceded.  The  contro- 
versy could  not  be  decided  like  an  academic  question.  Each 
party  was  able  to  adduce  numberless  arguments  for  its  own 
view  of  the  case,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  could  pro- 
duce any  proof  of  the  correctness  of  its  view.  France's  views, 
even  if  not  without  weight,  conld  not  be  the  governing  ones, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  because  these  views  had  been  formed 
while  it,  too,  was  an  interested  power. ■'     What  the  parties 

'  The  provision  in  question  is  taken  up  in  so  many  words  in  the  treaty  of 
April  30.  It  reads:  "  Sa  Majeste  Catholique  promit  et  s'enguge  de  son 
c6te,  t,  retroceder  •^  la  Republique  Fran(?aise  ...  la  Colonie  ou  Prov- 
ince de  la  Louisiane,  avec  la  m6me  etendue  qu'elle  a  actuellement  entre 
les  mains  de  I'Espagne,  et  qu'elle  avait  lorsque  la  France  la  possedoit,  ef 
telle  qu'elle  doit  6tre  d'aprbs  les  traites  passes  subsequemment entre  I'Es- 
pagne et  d'autres  Etats."    Stat,  at  L.,  VIII,  p.  203. 

* ".  .  .  that  [the  provision  cited  in  the  treaty  of  Ildefonso]  was  a  des- 
ignation not  geographical,  but  poUtical  and  possessory  —  as  actually  pos- 
sessed by  Spain  at  the  cession,  as  formerly  (without  reference  to  date) 
possessed  by  France,  and  as  subsequently  modified  by  treaties  with  other 
powers.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  article  was  drawn  with  the  express  in- 
tention on  the  part  of  France  to  take  possession  of  the  whole  original  colony 
of  Louisiana,  as  granted  in  Crozat's  charter.  Whether  Spain  meant  the 
same  thing,  or  understood  the  article  as  importing  so  much,  may  be  ques- 


CONTKOVERSY   ABOUT   THE   FLOKIDAS.  549 

were  confronted  with  was  not  the  original  documents,  but 
actual  circumstances.  Spain  was  exhausted  to  the  extreme 
by  the  French  wars,  and  all  the  strength  that  was  left  her 
was  claimed  by  her  colonies  in  revolt.  This  it  was  that  de- 
termined the  course  of  the  struggle  in  which  the  dull  mo- 
notony of  argument  was  occasionally  interrupted  by  blows. 
The  United  States  were  the  stronger  party,  and  the  stronger 
party  was  right. 

The  Union,  however,  was  not  the  stronger  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  it  could  have  completely  asserted  its  claims;  but 
the  Union  moved  forward  and  Spain  receded.  The  treaty  of 
February  22,  1819,*  decided  the  angry  controversy  about  the 
Floridas  in  favor  of  the  United  States,  and  extended  their 
northwestern  boundary  below  the  forty-second  degree,  north 
latitude,  to  the  Pacilic  ocean.''    The  administration  believed, 

tioned.  But  both  paxties  knew  that  if  a  question  of  construction  upon  the 
article  should  arise  between  them,  the  effective  construction  would  be  that 
of  France.  It  appears  even  from  these  publications  in  the  '  City  Gazette ' 
that  Marbois,  the  man  who  concluded  the  treaty  with  our  plenipotentiaries, 
had  once  said  that  Mobile  was  part  of  Louisiana;  and  at  the  time  when  the 
Louisiana  convention  was  ratified  by  the  senate,  in  1803,  Jonathan  Dajrton 
stated  in  his  place,  that  Laussat  had  told  him  at  New  Orleans  that  when 
the  troops  then  expected  out  of  France  .  .  .  should  arrive,  they  would 
take  possession  to  the  Perdido,  without  asking  any  questions  of  Spain. 
But  when  France  had  sold  her  bargain  to  us,  and  wanted  to  sell  it  to  us  a 
second  time,  she  changed  her  tone  —  first  equivocated  and  evaded,  and 
finally  declared  herself  point-blank  against  us  upon  the  eastern  limit,  and 
more  feebly  and  ambiguously,  upon  the  western."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams, 
IV,  pp.  220, 221. 

» Stat,  at  L.,  VIIL  p.  252  seq. 

*  "  The  acknowledgment  of  a  definite  line  of  boundary  to  the  South  Sea 
forms  a  great  epocha  in  our  history.  The  first  proposal  of  it  in  this  nego- 
tiation was  my  own,  and  I  trust  it  is  now  secured  beyond  the  reach  of  rev- 
ocation. It  was  not  even  among  our  claims  by  the  treaty  of  independence 
with  Great  Britain.  It  was  not  among  our  pretensions  under  the  purchiuse 
of  Louisiana — for  that  gave  us  only  the  range  of  the  Mississippi  and  its 
waters.  I  first  introduced  it  in  the  written  proposal  of  the  31st  October 
last  [1818],  after  Iiavin^  discussed  it  verbally  both  with  Ouis  and  De  Neu* 


550  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

and  rightly,  that  it  had  achieved  a  great  victory.  The  senate 
emphatically  agreed  in  this  view,  inasmuch  as  it  unanimously 
ratified  the  treaty.^ 

Yet  entire  satisfaction  was  not  given.  The  United  States 
pretended  that  they  had,  by  the  treaty  of  April  30, 1803,  ob- 
tained the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte  as  their  boundary  in  the 
southwest.  On  the  10th  of  July,  1818,  Adams,  the  secretary 
of  state,  answered  to  the  proposition  of  the  mediating  French 
ambassador,  Hyde  de  Neuville,  to  establish  the  Sabine  as  the 
boundary:  "impossible!"^  President  Monroe  and  all  the 
other  members  of  the  cabinet,  however,  announced  them- 
selves finally  ready  to  agree  to  Neuville's  proposition,  and 
Adams  had  to  yield.'  As  the  president,  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  the  secretary  of  war,  and  the  attorney  general*  all 
belonged  to  the  slave  states,  Benton  was  right  when,  in  May, 
1844,  he  complained  that  "southern  men"  had  given  away 
Texas.^  But,  at  that  time,  no  one  seems  to  have  inquired 
whether  the  slave  states,  as  such,  had  any  particular  interest 
in  the  question.  Jackson,  who  received  information  from 
Adams  of  the  proposed  boundary  line  before  the  treaty  was 
closed,  and  who  approved  it,  said  only  that  the  opposition, 
as  an  opposition,  would  find  fault,  and  his  own  alarm  was 
confined  to  this,  that  new  hostilities  would  have  to  be  feared 

ville.  ...  I  record  the  first  assertion  of  this  claim  for  the  United  States 
a.<?  my  own."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IV,  p.  275. 

'Calh.'s  Works,  IV,  pp.  366,  367;  Mem',  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IV,  p.  277.    , 

*Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IV,  p.  106. 

* "  I  had,  myself,  in  the  negotiation  of  om:  treaty  with  Spain,  labored  to 
get  the  Rio  del  Norte  as  our  boundary,  and  I  adhered  to  the  demand  till 
Mr.  Monroe  and  all  his  cabinet  directed  me  to  forego  it,  and  to  assent  to 
take  the  Sabine."  Adams's  Speech  of  April  15, 1842,  in  the  House  of  Rep-- 
resentativea.    Niles,  LXII,  p.  138. 

•*  Monroe,  Crawford,  Calhoun,  Wirt. 

' "  Southern  men  deprived  us  of  Texas,  and  made  it  non-slaveholdiug  in 
181^."    Niles,  LXVI,p.  401. 


TEXAS   AJSD  THE   SLAVOCEAOT.  551 

from  the  Indians  removed  from  the  western  shore  of  the 
Mississippi.*  And  Benton  himself,  who  first  and  most  em- 
phatically came  forward  in  opposition  to  yielding  on  this 
point,  leaving  the  "right"  out  of  consideration,  contended 
only  for  the  necessity  of  claiming  every  inch  of  land  of  the 
valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and  of  its  tributary  streams.^ 

The  veil  soon  began  to  be  torn  from  the  eyes  of  the  south. 
Even  while  the  transactions  between  Adams  and  the  Spanish 
ambassador,  Onis,  on  the  Florida  treaty  were  pending,  events 
were  preparing  which  would,  sooner  or  later,  necessarily 
make  the  acquisition  of  Texas  a  vital  question  to  the  slavoe- 
racy.  The  Missouri  compromise  had  been  an  immense 
victory  for  the  south,  but  it  was  far  from  having,  as  yet, 
given  it  one-half  of  the  territorial  land  of  the  Union.  In  a 
comparatively  short  time  the  parts  which  had  fallen  to  the  lot 
of  slavery  would  have  to  be  transformed  into  states,  while 
the  free  states  had  yet  immeasurable  tracts  at  their  disposal. 
It  was  precisely  the  struggle  over  the  Missouri  question 
which  paved  the  way,  in  the  south,  for  the  recognition  of 
the  fact,  that  it  would  have  to  break  through  the  southwest 
boundary,  drawn  by  the  Florida  treaty,  if  it  would  main- 
tain as  strong  a  representation  in  the  senate  as  the  north. 
It  was  no  mere  accident,  that  the  first  senseless  plan  made 
by  one  James  Long,  not  many  months  after  the  close  of  the 
treaty,  to  transform  Texas,  with  its  population  of  about 
5,000  inhabitants,  into  an  independent  republic,  was  hatched 
in  Mississippi,  whose  fanaticism  for  slavery  was  not  inferior 
even  to  that  of  South  Carolina.' 

But  the  great  prize  could  not  be  won  so  quickly  nor  with 
so  little  trouble.  The  proclamation  which  Long,  as  "presi- 
dent of  the  supreme  council  of  Texas,"  issued,  on  the  23d  of 

'  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  IV,  pp.  238,  239. 

»Niie8,  LXVI.p.  401. 

•See  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  pp.  11,  12. 


552  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

June,  1819,^  gave  the  assurance  that  "  the  citizens  of  Texas  " 
had  always  hoped  that  when  the  boundary  line  between  the 
Spanish  possessions  and  the  United  States  was  fixed  that 
they  would  be  added  to  the  latter.  This  was,  to  say  the 
least,  improbable,  since  there  were  yet  no  settlers  from 
the  Union  in  Texas.  But  what  now  was  bold  assertion, 
might  soon  become  a  fact,  since  now  the  colonization  of  the 
country  from  the  United  States  began.  To  promote  its  set- 
tlement, Mexico  endeavored  to  attract  foreign  emigrants  by 
the  granting  of  extremely  favorable  conditions.  It  does  not 
seem  to  have  feared  that  it  could  run  any  risk  by  opening 
its  doors  as  wide  to  persons  belonging  to  the  United  States  as 
to  other  colonists.  And  if  it  entertained  any  alarm  in  tliis 
respect  it  was  outweighed  by  the  friendly  attitude  wliichthe 
Union  had  assumed  towards  its  revolution,  and  by  the  ex- 
pectation that  those  who  came  would  be  preponderantly,  or 
even  exclusively.  Catholics.  Moses  Austin,  of  Missouri, 
effected  a  large  land  grant  to  himself  for  the  founding  of  a 
colony,   and  after  his  death,   a  little   later,   the  franchise 

•  The  most  essential  part  of  the  proclamation  is  printed  in  a  speech  of 
the  representative D.  S.  Kaufmann,  of  Texas;  Congr.  Globe,  29th  Cong.,  1st 
Sess.,  App.,  p.  803.  Severance,  of  Maine,  says,  in  a  speech  of  February  4, 
1847:  "Long  and  his  party  of  about  seventy-five  men  left  Natchez,  in 
Mississippi,  on  the  17th  of  June,  and  declared  the  independence  of  all 
Texas,  at  Nacogdoches,  on  the  24th  of  the  same  month.  The  oppressions 
of  the  Spanish  government  could  not  have  operated  so  severely  upon  them 
as  they  represent,  for  they  could  not  have  been  in  Texas  more  than  a  day 
or  two  when  they  organized  their  *  Supreme  Council.'  They  had  left 
Natchez  only  six  days  before,  a  mere  band  of  lawless  adventurers.  .  .  . 
Not  a  man  of  them  had  any  sort  of  title  to  a  foot  of  land  in  Texas,  and,  so 
far  as  appears,  none  of  them  had  ever  been  in  Texas  before;  and  these 
are  the  men  who  so  earnestly  remonstrate  against  being  ceded  to  Spain 
without  then:  consent."  Congr.  Globe,  29th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  App.,  p.  28". 
Long  afterwards  entered  into  an  alliance  with  John  Lafitte,  a  notoriou ) 
pirate  ia  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  was,  after  various  adventures,  shot  in 
the  streets  of  Mexico  by  a  soldier. 


THE   a  ^  BIKE   LINE.  553 

was  made  over  to  his  son,  Stephen  F.  Austin .  The  latter 
took  hold  of  the  difficult  task  with  circumspection  and  en- 
ergy. His  companions  came  principally  from  Tennessee, 
Mississippi  and  Louisiana.  He,  of  course,  permitted  them 
to  take  their  slaves  with  them.  But  he  did  more  yet:  a 
premium  of  eighty  acres  was  offered  for  each  slave.  Texas 
belonged  to  Mexico,  but  from  the  year  1823,  it  became  act-  =- 
ually  a  colony  of  the  slave-holding  interest  of  the  United 
States. 

It  was  more  than  time  for  the  slavocracy  to  get  a  foothold 
in  the  country.  A  decree  of  the  Mexican  congress  of  the 
13th  of  July,  1824,  prohibifed  the  importation  of  slaves 
from  foreign  countries,  and  the  constitution  adopted  in  the 
same  year  declared  all  children  thereafter  born  of  slaves  free. 
But  Texas  was  a  great  way  off,  and  the  arm  of  the  Mexican 
government  was  not  long.  Now,  as  before,  settlers  came 
with  their  slaves  from  the  slave  states  to  Texas.  In  this, 
the  heads  of  the  individual  persons  may  have  been  haunted 
by  far-reaching  projects;  but  I  can  find  no  support  for  the  "t" 
assertion,  that  back  of  it  there  was  a  definite  plan  of  the 
"  south."  The  desire  to  come  into  the  possession  of  a  country 
so  extremely  blessed  by  nature  may  be  said  to  have  sufiered 
no  interruption,  spite  of  the  Florida  treaty.  The  first  serious 
steps  taken  towards  its  acquisition  after  tlie  treaty  did  not, 
however,  proceed  from  the  slavocracy. 

Scarcely  had  Adams  taken  the  presidential  chair  when  he 
made  an  effort  to  supply  what,  in  his  opinion,  had  been  over- 
looked in  the  Florida  treaty.  On  the  26th  of  March,  1825, 
he  caused  his  ambassador  to  Mexico,  Poinsett,  of  South  Car- 
olina, to  be  instructed  to  prevail  on  Mexico  to  give  up  the 
Sabine  line.  A  whole  series  of  boundary  lines  was  proposed, 
of  which  the  Rio  del  Norte  was  the  most  westerly.'    Although 

'  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  delivered  in  the  houBe  of  representatives  in 
fragments  from  the  15th  of  June  to  the  7th  of  July,  1838.  Wash.,  1838. 
p.  106. 


554  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

these  propositions  were  very  badly  received  by  Mexico,  Adams 
wished  to  have  them  renewed  two  years  later  in  the  form  of  a 
contract  of  purchase.^  Poinsett  was  to  offer  half  a  million 
or  a  million  dollars,  according  to  which  of  the  boundarie< 
contemplated  Mexico  wonld  prefer. 

The  United  States  had  become  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
Spanish  pride  to  know  with  what  violence  it  would  rise  up 
against  such  a  job.  Poinsett  considered  it  best  to  leave  the 
task  committed  to  him  unexecuted.^  But  it  was  hoped  that 
bitter  need  would  teach  Mexico  humility.  The  proofs  that 
Mexico  had,  in  the  settlers  from  the  United  States,  laid  a 
cuckoo's  egg  in  its  nest  had  not  to  be  waited  for.^  Adams 
told  it  so  to  its  face,  in  1827,  in  words  wliich  were  rather 
blunt.  He,  indeed,  clothed  what  he  said  in  the  form,  that 
Mexico  did  not  seem  to  attach  much  importance  to  the  pos- 
session of  this  region  since  it  had  invited  the  settlers.  But 
the  form  changed  nothing  in  the  bitter  truth  that  the  settlers 
had  brought  with  them  ''our  principles  of  law,  freedom  and 
religion,"  which  had  already  involved  them  in  a  conflict  with 
Mexico,  and  would  surely  involve  them  still  more  with  her 
in  the  future,  so  that  very  serious  differences  between  the 
two  republics  might  easily  grow  out  of  them. 

But  these,  after  all,  were  facts,  and  Adams  could  properly 
refer  to  them,  since  the  United  States  had  done  nothing  to 

» Ibid.,  p.  108;  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  VII,  pp.  239,  240. 

*  "  .  .  .  He  forbore  even  to  make  an  overture  for  that  pui-pose  [a  re- 
purchase!. Upon  liis  return  to  the  United  States,  he  informed  me,  at  Kew 
Orleans,  that  his  reason  for  not  making  it  was,  that  he  knew  the  purchase 
was  wholly  impracticable,  and  that  he  was  persuaded  that,  if  he  made  the 
overture,  it  would  have  no  other  effect  than  to  aggravate  uritations,  already 
existing,  upon  mattei-s  of  difference  between  the  two  countries."  Clay, 
April  17,  1841.    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  152. 

*A  second  attempt  had  been  made  in  1826,  by  some  "lisappointed  appli- 
cants for  land  grants,  in  conjunction  with  the  Cherokees  on  the  Red  river, 
to  separate  Texas  from  Mexico  by  force.  See  Foote,  Texas  and  the  Texans, 
I,  p.  254. 


EMANCIPATION   IK   TEXAS.  6^ 

bring  them  about.  It  was  something  entirely  different  when 
the  Union  made  use  of  Mexico's  embarrassment  to  exert  an 
influence,  by  means  of  these  circumstances.  That  Jackson 
did.  He  waited  for  the  moment  when  Spain  set  an  expedition 
on  foot  in  Cuba  against  Mexico,  to  renew  the  propositions  for 
purchase.  He,  at  the  same  time,  recalled  the  fact  that  rev- 
olutions had  become  the  order  of  the  day  in  Texas,  and  that 
its  complete  disseverance  from  Mexico  had  been  attempted 
once  already.*  He  did  not  express  himself  with  the  same 
regardlessness  of  consequences  entirely  on  the  reasons  which 
made  the  purchase  seem  so  urgent  on  the  other  side.  In 
this  respect,  the  condition  of  affairs  had  changed  very  mnch 
during  the  last  two  years.  » 

The  constitution  of  1827  of  the  provinces  of  Coahuila  and 
Texas,  united  into  one  state,  had  prohibited  the  importa- 
tion of  slaves,  and  declared  all  the  children  of  slaves  borr 
thereafter  free.  Not  many  weeks  after  Poinsett  had  been 
charged  with  the  renewal  of  the  negotiations  for  purchase, 
Mexico  completed  the  w^ork  of  emancipation.  A  decree  of 
the  15th  of  September,  1829,  gave  all  slaves  their  freedom. 

'  *'  It  is  the  wish  of  the  president  that  you  should,  without  delay,  open 
a  negotiation  with  the  Mexican  government  for  the  purchase  of  so  much  of 
the  province  of  Texas  as  is  hereinafter  described,  or  for  such  a  part  thereof 
as  they  can  be  induced  to  cede  to  us,  if  the  same  be  conformable  to  either 
of  the  locations  with  which  you  are  herewith  furnished.  The  president  is 
aware  of  the  difficulties  which  may  be  interposed  to  the  accomplishment  of 
the  object  in  view;  but  he  confidently  beUeves  that  the  views  of  the  matter 
which  it  will  be  in  your  power  to  submit,  and  the  pecuniary  consideration 
which  you  will  be  authorized  to  propose,  will  enable  you  to  effect  it.  He 
is  induced,  by  a  deep  conviction  of  the  real  necessity  of  tiae  proposed  acqui- 
sition, not  only  as  a  guard  for  our  western  frontier,  and  the  protection  of 
New  Orleans,  but  also  to  secure  forever  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley  of 
tlie  Mississippi  the  undisputed  and  undisturbed  possession  of  the  navigation 
of  that  river,  together  with  tlie  belief  that  the  present  moment  is  particu- 
larly favorable  for  the  purpose,  to  request  your  early  and  unremitting 
attention  to  the  subject. 

" .  .   .  The  want  of  confidence  and  reciprocal  attachment  between  the 


556  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

The  American  settlers  in  Texas  yielded  no  obedience  to  these 
laws,  and  the  government  was  so  powerless  against  them  that 
an  attempt  was  made  to  prevent  another  revolution  by 
spreading  the  rumor  that  it  was  intended  to  except  Texas.' 

This  hostile  attitude  of  Mexico  towards  slavery  had  alarmed 
the  south.  Before  general  emancipation  had  been  decreed, 
the  slavocracy  believed  that  danger  was  approaching.  The 
Pennsylvania  Gazette  advised  that  for  the  present  the  proj- 
ect of  purchase  should  be  desisted  from,  for  the  reason  that 
the  territory  to  be  acquired  might  easily  become  the  prey  of 
the  slavocracy.^    The  Genius  of  Universal  Emancipation 


government  and  the  present  inhabitants  of  Texas  |not  Spanishl,  from 
whatever  cause  arising,  is  too  notorious  to  require  elucidation.  It  has,  in 
the  short  space  of  five  years,  displayed  itself  in  not  less  tlian  four  revolts, 
one  of  them  havinj?  for  its  avowed  object  the  independence  of  thecountiy." 
Van  Buren's  Instructions  to  Poinsett,  August  25.  1829. 

•The  secretary  of  state,  Alaman,  informed  the  Mexican  congress,  in 
1830:  "The  independence  of  the  North  Americans  in  Texas  is  such,  and 
their  superiority  has  arrived  at  such  a  point,  that,  notwithstanding  the 
abolition  of  slavery  decreed  on  the  15th  September  last,  by  virtue  of  the 
extraordinary  powers,  the  commandant  on  the  frontier  of  that  state  haa 
stated  that  he  had  no  hope  of  ever  seeing  that  decree  obeyed,  unless  en- 
forced by  greater  means  than  he  had  under  his  command.  This  resistance 
has  brought  things  to  such  a  pass,  that  it  was  thought  to  have  been  the 
cause  of  an  insurrection;  and,  in  order  to  avoid  this,  it  was  given  out  that 
this  department  was  excepted  from  the  operation  of  tlie  decree,  by  author- 
ity, not  of  an  express  provision,  but  which  is  very  extraordinary,  by  a  pri- 
vate letter  wiitten  by  General  Guerrero  to  General  Teran,  commandant 
general  of  the  eastern  states,  authorizing  him  to  inform  the  colonists  that 
the  decree  in  question  did  not  embrace  Texas."  Exec.  Doc,  25th  Congr., 
2d  Sess.,  Vol.  XII,  No.  351,  p.  315. 

*  "  True,  the  majority  of  the  people  are  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slav- 
ery; but  will  that  majority  act  efficiently  at  the  present  time?  We  have 
strong  doubts  of  this;  and  are  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  the  wisest  pol- 
icy will  be  to  defer  the  purchase  until  the  public  mind  is  fully  prepared  to 
restrict  the  extension  of  slavery  beyond  the  limits  of  its  present  existence." 
The  war  in  Texas  ...  a  crusade  against  Mexico,  set  on  foot  and 
supported  by  slaveholders,  land  speculators,  etc.,  1836.    I  have  used  the 


BENTON   ACCUSES   ADAMS.  557 

failed  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  was  question  of  acquir- 
ing the  material  for  five  or  six  new  slave  states,'  and  in  say- 
ing so,  said  only  what  had  been  i-epeatedly  and  openly  said 
before  by  the  southern  spokesmen.  Benton,  at  the  time 
senator,  had  already  set  himself  up  under  the  name  of 
"  Americanus,"  in  the  St  Louis  Beacon,  as  a  skirmisher  for 
the  slavocracy.  He  accused  Adams  of  having  abandoned 
Texas  in  the  Florida  treaty,  from  enmity  to  the  interests  of 
the  south,  and  without  any  necessity.  In  view  of  the  danger, 
which  could  not  be  estimated  too  highly,  of  having  a  foreign 
free  state  so  close,  he  characterized  the  magnitude  of  the  loss 
suffered  by  saying,  that  the  territory  would  have  been  suffi- 
cient to  form  half  a  dozen  or  more  very  respectable  slave 
states. 

The  southern  press  joined  in  the  melody  with  a  loud  flour- 
ish of  trumpets.''    But  Mexico  not  only  rejected  the  offered 

second  edition,  Philadelphia,  1837.  Benjamin  Lundi  is  the  author  of  the 
document.    Channing,  Works,  II,  p.  186. 

'  "  We  cannot  longer  disguise  the  fact,  that  the  advocates  of  slavery  are 
resolved,  at  all  hazards,  to  obtain  the  territory  in  question,  if  possible,  for 
the  avowed  purpose  of  adding  five  or  six  more  slaveholding  states  to  this 
Union."    16th  of  September,  1829. 

•The  "Edgefield  Carohnian,"  which  was  considered  the  organ  of  Mc- 
Dnffie,  said  in  a  review  of  Benton's  article:  "  This  large  fragment  of  the 
Mississippi  valley,  affording  sufficient  territory  for  four  or  five  slaveholding 
states,  was  unceremoniously  sacrificed  with  scarcely  a  pretext  of  a  demand 
for  it  on  the  part  of  Spain.  The  time  of  the  negotiation  was  during  the 
heat  of  the  debate  on  the  Missouri  question  —  the  place  was  Washington, 
whither  the  negotiation  had  been  unnecessarily  removed,  while  it  was  pro- 
ceeding prosperously  at  Madrid,  and  where  the  restrictionists  were  then 
assembled  in  all  their  strength,  and  the  negotiator  was  Mr.  Adams,  the 
friend  and  associate  of  the  most  thoroughgoing  among  those  restriction- 
ists. '  Americanus  '  exjxwes  the  evils  to  the  United  States  of  this  surren- 
der, under  twelve  distinct  heads.  Two  of  them  of  particular  interest  to 
this  section  of  the  country  are,  that  it  brings  a  non-slaveholding  empire  in 
juxtaposition  with  the  slaveholding  southwest,  and  diminishes  the  outlet 
lot  the  Indians  inhabiting  the  states  of  Georgia,  Alabama,  Mississippi  and 


55S    JA«TKSON's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

five  millionB,but  took  measures  to  keep  the  friends  who 
thanked  hev  for  her  generosity  by  endeavoring  to  tear  the 
whole  country  from  her,  from  her  throat  in  future.*  But 
neither  the  administration  nor  the  slavocracy  permitted  itself 
to  be  disturbed  by  this.  The  American  charge  d'affaires 
in  Mexico  was  indeed  of  opinion  that  an  immediate  uprising 
in  Texas,  which  would  have  made  it  drop  of  itself  into  the 
lap  of  the  United  States,  should  be  calculated  on  no  longer. 
He,  however,  thought  that  the  revolution  was  postponed  only 
for  a  year  or  two,  and  expressed  the  conviction  that  a  bar- 
gain would  be  more  easily  wrung  from  Mexico,  in  propor- 
tion as  such  was  demanded  of  her.'' 

Tennessee."  The  Wax  in  Texas,  p.  15.  Sevei-al  similar  utterances  by 
other  journals  are  printed  in  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  pp.  13, 14. 

'  "  In  less  than  ten  years  after  the  commencement  of  the  settlement  of 
Texas,  the  law  of  the  6th  of  April,  1830,  was  passed  by  the  Mexican  con- 
gress, forbidding  the  further  settlement  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
in  tlie  country,  and  forbidding  their  entering  the  country  without  passports 
from  the  proper  authorities;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  people  of  all 
other  countries  were  not  only  permitted  to  come,  but  invited  to  settle  in 
the  coimtry.  .  .  .  This  was  all  the  work  of  British  influence.''  To  the 
Hon.  J.  Q.  Adams  and  the  other  twenty  members  of  congress  ...  re- 
monstrating against  the  annexation  of  Texas,  p.  2. 

'  Anthony  Butler  to  Van  Buren,  March  9,  1830:  "  Had  his  [Alaman's] 
project  been  adopted,  as  recommended,  I  am  confident  that  a  revolution  in 
that  province  would  immediately  have  followed,  and  Texas  become  ours, 
by  a  movement  among  the  people  themselves,  without  costing  the  govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  a  dollar;  but  the  modification  of  the  plan  sug- 
gested on  the  part  of  congress  will  leave  the  population  but  little  to  complain 
of,  and  tranquillity  may, therefore,  continue  for  a  year  or  two  longer.  .  .  . 
You  will  perceive  that  the  secretary  himself  [Alaman]  suggests  a  proba- 
bility of  our  claiming  territory  as  far  west  as  the  Rio  Grande,  and  I  have 
60  managed  as  to  strengthen  that  impression  on  his  mind  (without  com- 
mitting myself  or  the  erovemment),  as  one  means  of  facilitiiting  the  retro- 
cession when  we  come  to  negotiate  for  the  country;  and  the  failure  to  ratify 
the  treaty  of  limits  has  been  in  connection  with  that  subject,  a  most  fort- 
unate event  for  us,  that  may  be  turned  to  good  account.  I  have  ascer- 
tained, very  satisfactorily,  that  the  Mexican  government  are  becoming 
anxious  on  the  question  of  Umits  and  boundary  between  the  United  States 


LONGING   FOB   TKXA8.  559 

Butler's  view  on  the  first  point  was  shared  by  others  also,' 
and  others  3et  spoke  little,  but  were  all  the  more  industriona 
to  make  that  a  fact  which  the  former  prophesied.  The  agi- 
tators were  determined  by  very  different  motives,  and  hence 
the  agitation  also  assumed  very  difierent  forms.  The  west, 
as  on  so  many  other  occasions,  was  moved  by  its  passion  for 
territorial  magnitude.  This  was  the  governing  motive  even 
with  Benton,  and  it  caused  Clay,  who  had  no  inclination 
toward  the  propagandism  of  slavery,  to  cooperate  with  Benton 
in  tliis  question.'^  That  was,  after  all,  a  passion  in  which  there 
was  a  certain  soaring  elevation,  and  which  even  was  not 
wanting  entirely  in  idealism.  Wlien  the  press  and  the  politi- 
cians, in  their  declamations,  sent  the  "young  eagle"  of  the 
Union  winging  his  way  proudly  in  his  flight  from  ocean  to 

and  Mexico;  and  I  have  been  more  than  once  approached  on  that  subject, 
but  always  found  means  to  evade  it,  leaving  them  under  the  influence  of 
whatever  their  imagination  might  create  to  awaken  suspicion  or  alarm 
their  fears.  If  instructions  were  given  me  to  urge  our  claim  to  the  territory 
as  far  west  as  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte,  or  permission  to  use  the  preten- 
tion as  an  auxiliary,  there  is  no  doubt  of  its  being  made  to  operate  very 
favorably  on  the  expected  negotiation  for  Texas;  and  the  claim  could  be 
employed  to  remove  objections  which,  without  some  aid  of  this  character, 
might  seriously  embarrass  the  proceeding."  Exec  Doc..  26th  Congr., 
2d  Sess.,  Vol.  XII,  No.  351,  pp.  311,  312. 

'The  "Arkansas  Gazette  "at  the  same  time  wrote:  "No  hope  need 
.  .  .  be  entertained  of  our  acquiring  Texas  until  some  other  party  more 
friendly  to  the  United  States  than  the  present  shall  predominate  in  Texas, 
and  perhaps  not  until  the  people  of  Texas  shall  throw  off  the  yoke  of  alle- 
giance to  that  government,  which  they  will  do,  no  doubt,  so  soon  as  they 
shall  have  a  reasonable  pretext  (!)  for  doing  so."  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams 
.    .    .    from  the  16th  of  June  to  the  7th  of  July,  p.  125. 

*  '•  The  appetite  for  Texas  was  from  the  first  a  western  passion,  stimu- 
lated by  no  one  more  greedily  than  by  Henry  Clay.  He  had  denounced 
the  Florida  treaty  for  fixing  the  boundary  at  the  Sabine,  and  held  and 
preached  the  doctrine  that  we  should  have  insisted  upon  our  shadow  of  a 
claim  to  the  Rio  del  Norte.  President  Monroe  actually  preferred  the  Una 
of  the  Sabine,  thinking  that  the  extension  of  the  boundary  would  weaken 
OB  for  defense."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  348. 


560  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ocean,  the  picture  was  one  whicli  might  well  awaken  the  en- 
thusiasm of  the  masses.  But  if  the  fires  of  this  enthusiasm 
could  be  at  all  fanned  to  such  an  extent  that  thev  might  go 
beyond  a  mere  flare,  they  had  to  be  energetically  and  con- 
tinually stirred  by  a  thousand  hands,  and  these  could  be 
found  only  in  case  the  cause  was  made  their  own  by  a  mate- 
rial personal  interest.  Tliis  was  done  by  means  of  thi-ee 
land  companies  established  about  the  year  1830,  in  New 
York,  —  the  Galveston  Bay  and  Texas  Land  Company,  the 
Arkansas  and  Texas  Land  Company,  and  the  Rio  Grande 
Company,  which  acquired  the  land  grants  made  by  the  Mex- 
ican government  to  empresarios,^  and  made  the  lands  the 
basis  of  stocks,  which  they  managed  to  bring  among  the 
people  in  large  quantities.  It  was  a  pure  bubble,  but  the 
desire  to  grow  rich  in  a  night  had  begun  to  rage,  and  thou- 
sands were  caught  by  the  shining  bait.''     It  was  not  to  be 

*  See  concerning  this  contract,  more  minutely  in  Kennedy,  Texas,  I,  pp. 
336-341. 

*" These  several  companies  created  'stocks'  upon  the  basis  of  those 
•grants,'  and  threw  them  into  the  market.  They  also  issued  'scrip,'  au- 
thorizing the  holders  of  it  to  take  possession  of  certain  tracts  of  land 
within  the  lines  marked  out  on  the  map  as  the  boundaries  of  their  respect 
ive  grants.  This  '  scrip  '  embraced  ti-acts  of  various  dimensions,  and  was 
sold  to  any  who  could  be  induced  to  purchase,  at  such  prices  as  could  be 
obtained.  To  a  bona  fide  settler  (and  none  else  could  obtain  land  it  pre- 
tended to  convey),  it  could  be  of  no  advantage  whatever,  as  the  facilitiea 
and  expenses  of  procuring  his  tract,  according  to  law,  would  be  the  same 
whether  he  held  the  scrip  or  not.  Every  cent  paid  for  it,  therefore,  was  so 
much  loss  to  the  settler,  and  gain  to  the  company.  Although  these  com- 
panies could  only  hold  their  grants  through  the  medium  of  the  empresa- 
rios,  for  the  Umited  period  of  six  years,  and  on  the  express  condition  of 
settling  a  specified  number  of  families,  they  dealt  largely  in  their  '  stock, ' 
and  sold  immense  quantities  of  '  scrip,'  insomuch  that  an  immense  amount 
of  money  has  no  doubt  been  realized  by  them  — while  very  few  settlers  (Ln 
many  of  the  grants  none)  have  been  introduced.  By  obtaining  from  the 
government  an  extension  of  the  time  stipulated  for  the  fulfilment  of  con- 
tracts made  with  the  empresarios,  they  have  been  enabled  to  continue  and 
increase  their  operations  upon  a  grand  scale.    Thousands  in  various  parts 


SAMUEL    HOUSTON.  561 

expected  that  Mexico  would  ever  recognize  the  wortliless 
land  titles.  Tliose  who  lona  fide  or  mala  fide  had  sought 
their  fortune  in  them,  could  therefore  never  get  back  their 
money  except  in  case  Texas  fell  into  the  hands  of  people 
who  were  willing,  by  subsequent  legalization  of  the  swindle 
of  the  land  companies,  to  give  the  "  scrip  "  a  real  value. 

But  even  before  this  large  class  of  interested  persons  had 
come  into  existence,  a  bold  adventurer  had  set  to  work  to  real- 
ize that  which  was  so  soon  to  become  so  important  a  matter  to 
the  money-bags  of  the  former.  Among  Jackson's  favorites, 
Samuel  Ilouston  occupied  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
places.  This  friendship  dated  from  the  time  of  Jackson's 
Indian  battles  in  1814,  in  which  the  young  lieutenant  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  general  by  his  extraordinary 
bravery.  Excitement  was  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  man, 
who,  even  when  a  boy,  had  shared  the  roaming  hunting  life  of 
the  Indians  for  three  years,  lived.  Personal  annoyances  de- 
termined him,  in  1818,  to  quit  the  service  and  to  try  his 
hand  at  politics  and  law.  At  school,  he  had  learned  little 
more  than  reading,  writing  and  arithmetic,  and  he  now 
finished  his  legal  studies  in  six  months.  He  understood 
the  arts  of  bold  initiative  better  than  the  doctrine  of  rights, 
but  notwithstanding  this,  he  became,  in  a  few  years,  an  attor- 
ney who  was  much  sought  after,  and  an  influential  politician 
in  Tennessee.  After  he  had  been  a  member  of  congress  for 
four  years,  he  was  chosen,  in  1827,  governor  of  the  state,  by 
a  large  majority.  He  brought  this  successful  career  to  a 
close  in  a  manner  which  caused  a  great  deal  of  talk.  He 
suddenly  turned  his  back  on  the  civilized  world,  and  went 
again  among  the  Indians,  taking  pleasure,  even,  in  wearing 

of  the  United  States  have  purchased  the  scrip  issued  by  them,  and  are  in- 
terested, of  course,  in  the  adoption  of  measures  to  legalize  their  claims. 
This  can  never  be  done,  however,  while  the  laws  are  in  force,  under  which 
the  colonization  privileges  were  obtained."    The  War  in  Texas,  p.  22. 
36 


562  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tlieir  costarae.  He  tamed  up  once  more  in  "Washington, 
in  the  beginning  of  1830.  The  general  public  only  knew 
that  he  was  endeavoring  to  obtain  a  contract  to  supply  the 
Indians,  which  would  have  cheated  the  government  to  the 
extent  of  about  one  hundred  per  cent.,  and  that  Jackson  was 
intent  on  doing  his  old  companion  in  arms  the  kindness  of 
letting  him  have  it.  But  Jackson  himself  was  informed 
after  a  few  months — if  indeed  he  did  not  know  it  from  the 
first  —  that  Houston  had  had  another  iron  in  the  fire.  Doc- 
tor Mayo,  a  person  well  known  in  political  circles,  informed 
Jackson,  by  a  letter  of  the  2d  of  December,  1830,  that 
Houston  had  disclosed  to  him  that  he  would  within  twelve 
months  dissever  Texas  from  Mexico;  that  volunteers  were 
already  secured  throughout  the  Union  for  the  revolutionary 
attempt  which  was  to  be  executed  with  the  assistance  of  the 
Indians  of  Arkansas,  and  whicli  would  bring  boundless  wealth 
to  all  the  participants  in  it.^  Athough  these  disclosures  were 
confirmed  and  completed  from  other  quarters,  Jackson  pre- 

'  See  the  details  in  Mayo,  Political  Sketches  of  Eight  Years  in  Washing- 
ton, pp.  117-129.  We  here  cite  only  the  most  important  passage  from 
the  letter  of  the  2d  of  December,  1830:  "  I  learnt  from  him  [Houston] 
these  facts  and  speculations,  viz. :  That  he  was  organizing  an  expedition 
against  Texas;  to  afford  a  cloak  to  which,  he  had  assumed  the  Indian 
costume,  habits  and  associations,  by  settling  among  them,  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Texas.  That  nothing  was  more  easy  to  accomplish  than  the 
conquest  and  possession  of  that  extensive  and  fertUe  country,  by  the  coop- 
eration of  the  Indians  in  Arkansas,  and  recruits  among  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States.  That,  in  his  view,  it  would  hardly  be  necessary  to  strike 
a  blow  to  wrest  Texas  from  Mexico.  That  it  was  ample  for  the  establish- 
ment and  maintenance  of  a  separate  and  independent  government  from 
the  United  States.  That  the  expedition  would  be  got  ready  with  all  pos- 
sible dispatch;  that  the  demonstration  would  and  must  be  made  in  about 
twelve  months  from  that  time  [February].  That  the  event  of  success 
opened  the  most  unbounded  prospect  of  wealth  to  those  who  would  em- 
bark in  it,  and  that  it  was  with  a  view  to  faciUtate  his  recruits,  he  wished 
to  elevate  himself  in  the  public  confidence  by  the  aid  of  my  communica- 
tions to  the  '  Richmond  Enquirer.'  " 


butleb's  PKorosmoN.  563 

t?nded  to  attach  no  faith  to  the  matter;  and  yet  in  a  "  strictl.^ 
confidential  "  letter  of  the  10th  of  December,  he  told  the  sec- 
retaiy  —  not  the  governor  —  of  tlie  territory  of  Arkansas,  to 
keep  his  eyes  open. 

Tlie  time  fixed  passed  away,  and  nothing  happened,  yet 
the  mole-like  labor  did  not  stop  a  moment.  Only  it  became 
necessary  to  go  to  work  with  more  circumspection  and  more 
systematically  than  Houston  had  thought  there  was  any  need 
of.  One  of  those- revolutions  usual  in  Mexico  afforded  the 
opportunity  for  the  preparatory  steps.  Texas  could  not 
carve  its  revolutionary  desires  into  the  forms  which  the 
weight  of  quasi-legal  authority  had  given  them,  so  long  as 
it  was  united  with  Coahuila  into  one  state,  because  its  rep- 
resentatives constituted  only  a  minority  in  the  united  legis- 
lature. Hence  the  next  aim  of  the  conspirators  was  the* 
s3paration  of  Coahuila  and  the  constituting  of  Texas  a  sep- 
arate state.  The  convention  called  to  meet  at  San  Felipe  in 
October,  1832,  for  this  purpose  was,  however,  not  largely 
attended,  and  broke  up  without  reaching  any  result.  There 
was  no  reason  why  this  should  cause  defeat.  It  was  plain 
that  the  matter  had  again  been  thought  too  easy.  Anthony 
Butler  proposed  to  Jackson  to  use  a  loan  desired  by  Mexico 
to  promote  the  purchase  in  question  more  eflSciently,  and 
was  of  opinion  that  Texas  should  be  given  as  a  pledge.  The 
president  not  only  roundly  refused  the  loan,  but  had  an  order 
given  to  Butler  through  Livingston  to  break  off  the  negotia- 
tions for  the  purchase,  because  they  would  soon  become  object- 
less, for  the  reason  that  the  American  colonists  of  Coahuila  in- 
tended to  declare  their  independence  in  a  convention  on  the 
1st  of  April,  1833.^     This  expectation  turned  out  to  be  pre- 

'  "This  precise  knowledge  of  Jackson,  to  a  day,  of  the  intended  design 
of  the  colonists  to  declare  their  independence  as  early  as  April,  1833,  was 
suppressed  in  the  document  communicated  to  the  house  in  1838."  Mem. 
of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  368. 


564  Jackson's  administeatiok  —  annexation  of  texas. 

mature.  The  convention  at  San  Felipe,  in  April,  1833,  stood 
by  the  programTne  of  the  last  fall,  bnt  came  to  a  conclusion 
in  relation  to  it  Austin  was  sent  to  Mexico  as  a  delegate 
to  effect  the  separation  of  Texas  and  Coahnila.  His  eiforts 
were  fruitless.  In  the  fall  he  wrote  to  Texas  that  there 
should  be  no  longer  delay,  but  that  Texas  should,  of  its  own 
motion,  constitute  itself  a  separate  state.  This  letter  became 
known  just  after  he  had  started  on  his  journey  home.  Be- 
fore he  had  reached  Texas,  he  was  arrested  at  Saltillo.and 
kept  in  prison  till  the  12th  of  June,  1834.^ 

Austin  admitted  his  arrest  to  be  entirely  justifiable, and 
laid  the  disagreeable  things  he  had  to  suffer  to  the  charge  of 
the  colonists,  and  warned  them  to  be  quiet,  since  all  equitable 
claims  could  be  obtained  from  the  government.'^  The  gov- 
ernment also  showed  itself  ready  to  meet  the  colonists.  Aus- 
tin was  released  from  imprisonment,  and  difierent  measures 
which  corresponded  with  the  desires  of  the  colonists  were 
taken.  But  the  latter  did  not  care  for  satisfaction.^  In 
addition  to  this,  the  revolutionary  disturbances  in  Mexico 
proper  drew  Texas  into  sympathy  with  them,  so  that  there 

'  Kennedy,  Texas,  II,  pp.  18-27,  58. 

*  He  writes  on  the  17th  of  January,  1834,  from  Monterey:  •'  I  do  not  in 
any  manner  blame  the  goyemment  for  arresting  me,  and  1  particularly 
request  that  there  may  be  no  excitement  about  it.  .  .  .  The  general 
government  are  disposed  to  do  eveiy  thing  for  Texas  that  can  be  done  to 
promote  its  prosperity  and  welfare  that  is  consistent  with  the  constitution 
and  laws,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the  state  government  will  do  the  same  if 
they  arp  applied  to  in  a  proper  manner."  And  on  the  10th  of  May,  1834: 
"  The  good  people  of  the  colony  precipitated  me  into  these  difficulties,  by 
their  excitements.  I  came  here  as  the  agent  of  excited  and  fevered  con- 
Ktituents,  and  I  represented  them  regardless  of  my  personal  safety  or  wel- 
fare."   The  War  in  Texas,  pp.  20,  21. 

*  I  find  different  statements  as  to  the  time  of  the  dissolution  of  the  decree 
of  Bustamante,  which  closed  Texas  to  settlers  from  the  United  States. 
According  to  some  of  them,  it  was  now  effected  by  Austin;  according  to 
others,  it  occurred  in  the  year  before. 


TUE   KEVOLUTION    BEGINS.  566 

was  no  want  of  causes  for  well  grounded  complaints.  Tlie 
friction  continued,  and  Santa  Anna  made  preparations  to 
reduce  the  refractory  country  to  obedience  by  force  of  arms. 
The  state  legislature,  which  had  become  guilty  of  bribery  on 
a  large  scale,  was  dispersed.^  Texas  was  without  a  govern- 
ment, and  the  real  revolution  began  with  the  formation  of 
committees  of  safety.*  The  first  armed  collisions  took  place 
in  the  beginning  of  October,  1835,  and  on  the  12th  of  Novem- 
ber delegates  of  the  committee  of  safety  in  San  Felipe  con- 
stituted themselves  a  "consultation"  which  established  a 
provisional  government.  The  Mexican  troops  were  re- 
peatedly beaten,  and  before  the  end  of  the  year  they  were 
driven  entirely  outside  the  limits  of  Texas. 

These  events  had  again  revived  Jackson's  endeavors  to 
effect  the  purchase.     Butler,  himself  a  speculator  in  Texas 

'  Here  too  there  was  question  of  speculation  in  land  which  gave  a  new 
impetus  to  the  business  in  "  Texas  scrip."  The  "  North  American  Review," 
July,  1836,  p.  246,  writes  on  this  matter:  "  In  1834,  a  company  of  land  spec- 
ulators, by  means  never  distinctly  known,  induced  the  legislature  of  Coahui- 
la  and  Texas  to  grant  them,  in  consideration  of  twenty  thousand  dollars,  the 
extent  of  four  hundred  square  leagues  of  public  lands.  This  transaction 
was  disavowed,  and  the  grant  annulled  by  the  Mexican  government;  and 
led  to  the  dispersion  of  the  legislature,  and  the  imprisonment  of  the  gov- 
ernor, Viesca.  And  yet  this  unauthorized  and,  perhaps,  corrupt  grant  of 
public  lands  formed  the  basis  of  new  speculation  and  fraud.  A  new  scrip 
was  formed;  and,  according  to  the  best  information  we  have  been  able  to 
obtain,  four  hundred  leagues  became,  in  the  hands  of  the  speculators,  as 
many  thousands.  The  extent  of  these  frauds  is  as  yet  to  be  ascertained; 
for  such  is  the  blindness  of  cupidity,  that  any  thing  which  looks  fair  on 
paper  passes  without  scrutiny  for  a  land  title  in  Texaa. 

"  This  interest  in  the  soil  of  Texas,  whether  real  or  fictitious,  so  widely 
diffused  among  a  speculating  people,  extending  from  Boston  to  New 
Orlean?,  could  not  fail  to  create  a  sympathy  and  a  bias,  which,  in  the  event 
of  another  rupture  between  the  colonists  and  the  government  of  Santa 
Anna,  might  compromit  the  neutrality  of  the  United  States.  Such  a  rup- 
ture was  soon  brought  about,  and  the  colonists  flew  to  arms." 

*  The  first  committee  of  safety  was  appointed  on  the  17th  of  May,  1835, 
at  Mina  (later  Bastrop). 


566  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

lands,^  thought  that  he  had  at  last  found  a  sure  means  to 
reach  his  end.  In  a  letter  of  the  17th  of  June,  1835,  he  pro- 
posed to  bribe  Ignacio  Hernandez,  the  confessor  of  Santa 
Anna's  sister,  with  a  sum  of  half  a  million  dollars.'"*  Jack- 
son would  hear  nothing  of  this,  but  in  a  note  of  the  25th  of 
July,  he  expressed  the  thought  that  Butler  might  'he  in- 
structed to  offer  half  a  million  more  in  case  Mexico  would 
consent  to  grant  the  Rio  del  Norte  fi*om  its  mouth  to  the 
3Tth  degree  of  north  latitude,  and  thence  this  latter  parallel 
to  the  Pacific  ocean  as  a  boundary.'  Even  now  the  northern 
half  of  Upper  California,  inclusive  of  the  harbor  of  San  Fran  • 
cisco,  was  coveted.  The  proper  instructions  of  the  secretary 
of  state  were  sent  to  Butler  on  tlie  6th  of  August.* 

Butler  thought  altogether  too  highly  of  his  diplomatic 
skill,  and  he,  moreover,  intentionally  befooled  the  president 
a  little.  In  order  to  maintain  himself  in  office,  he,  against 
his  own  better  knowledge,  never  allowed  Jackson's  hopes  to 
fade  entirely.  But  he  did  not  accomplish  the  least  thing. 
The  realization  of  the  wishes  of  both  sides  was  possible  only 
in  the  way  on  which  Texas  had  entered.  And  the  extension 
of  the  limits  beyond  the  territory  of  Texas,  had  in  view  by 
Jackson,  could  very  well  be  accomplished  in  this  circuitous 
manner.  Letters  from  Austin  which  got  into  Texas  in  Janua- 
ry, 1836,  advised  that  an  eventual  declaration  of  independence 
should  not  be  accompanied  by  a  precise  defining  of  the  limits." 

'  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  pp.  354,  359. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  348-351.  "  Neither  this  letter  nor  that  of  W.  A.  Slocum  of 
August  1st,  1835,  was  ever  communicated  to  congress;  but  in  them  origi- 
nated the  project  of  enlarging  the  encroachment  upon  Mexico,  from  tho 
mere  acquisition  of  Texas,  to  embrace  all  New  Mexico  to  the  thirty- seventh 
parallel  of  latitude,  and  thence  across  the  continent  to  the  South  Sea." 

"Ibid.,  pp.  361,362. 

*  See  the  speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  .  .  .  from  the  16th  of  June  to  the 
7th  of  July,  1838,  p.  4;  R.  J.  Walker,  Letter  relative  to  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  Jan.,  1844,  p.  7. 

*  "Should  a  declaration  of  independence  be  made  there  ought  to  be  no 


DBOIJLEATION   OF  TEXAN  INDEPENDEKCK.  567 

It  depended  on  the  fortune  of  arms  in  what  direction  the 
i-ext  step  forwards  in  the  development  of  the  Texas  question 
was  made. 

On  the  2d  of  March,  1836,  the  declaration  of  independ- 
ence of  Texas  was  issued.  It  cannot  be  properly  said  that 
Texas  declared  herself  independent  on  this  daj.  Of  the 
sixty  signers  of  the  declaration  of  independence,  three  were 
Mexicans  by  birth,  forty-eight  emigrants  from  the  slave- 
holding,  and  five  from  the  free  states  of  the  Union.^  How 
many  of  these  were  citizens  of  Texas  or  real  settlers,  I  do 
not  know.  Lundi  assures  us  that  the  last  class  were  mostly 
opposed  to  the  disseverance  of  Texas.^  This  much  is  certain, 
that  with  here  and  there  an  exception,  it  was  only  a  small 
handful  of  emiirrauts  and  adventurers  from  the  slave  states 
of  the  Union  who  endeavored  to  conquer  Texas  for  the 
United  States  and  the  slavocracy.  The  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence very  ingenuously  alleged  among  the  reasons  for 
the  separation,  that  Spanish  was  the  language  of  the  Mexi- 
can government.'    The  constitution  of  the  17th  of  March 

limits  prescribed,  on  the  south,  west,  or  northwest;  the  field  should  be  left 
open  for  extending  beyond  the  Rio  Grande,  and  to  Chihuahua  and  New 
Mexico,"    Kennedy,  Texas,  II,  p.  170. 

'  The  figures  known  to  me  do  not  quite  agree.  De  Bow,  Commercial 
Review,  XXIII,  p.  247,  says  in  anote:  "  In  1850 nine-tenths  of  the  Amer- 
icans in  Texas  not  bom  there  were  bom  in  the  slave  states  of  the  Union, 
only  one-twentieth  were  bom  in  the  northern  states,  and  one-tenth  in  the 
northern  and  northwestern.  Of  the  sixty  who  signed  the  Texan  declara- 
tion of  independence,  forty-eight  were  from  the  southern  slave-holding 
states,  and  but  five  from  the  free  states."  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican 
War,  p.  18,  writes:  "Of  the  fifty-seven  signers  to  this  declaration,  fifty 
were  emigrants  from  the  slave  states,  and  only  three  Mexicans  by  birth, 
and  these,  it  is  said,  largely  interested  in  Texan  land  speculation.''  A 
copy  of  the  declaration  before  me  has  only  fifty-two  signatures,  and  of 
these  three  are  Spanish  names. 

*  The  War  in  Texas,  passim. 

*  "  It  [the  government  of  Santa  Ana  (sic)]  hath  (sic)  sacrificed  our  wel- 
fare to  the  state  of  Coahuila,  by  which  our  interests  have  been  continually 


568    JACKBOn's  ADMINISTBATION annexation  of  TEXAS. 

provided  for  the  introduction  of  the  common  law;  and  for 
the  chains  of  slavery,  with  which  the  new-born  state  was 
loaded,  the  extremest  slave  states  were  taken  as  a  model  by 
that  constitution.^  From  the  two  opposite  sides  Texas 
showed  itself  a  genuine  off-shoot  of  the  parent  trunk.  In- 
stead of  the  Eomanic  republicanism  which  is  based  on  pro- 
nunciamentos,  the  broad  foundation  of  Anglo-Saxon  free- 
dom was  laid;  but  at  the  same  time  the  sons  of  the  demo- 
cratic republic  tore  the  instrument  containing  the  death 
sentence  which  the  law  of  the  Spanish  Mexicans  had  pro- 
nounced against  slavery.  The  wide  country  in  which  legally 
the  principle  of  personal  freedom  had  absolute  force,  these 
same  sons  transformed  into  one  of  the  domains  of  slavery, 
and  this  transformation  was  the  principal  motive  of  their 
entire  action. 

They,  therefore,  rightly  expected,  in  the  first  place,  from 
the  population  of  the  slave  states,  that  they  would  look  upon 
the  revolution  in  Texas  as  their  own  cause.  Adams  declared 
that  Tennessee  and  Ai'kansas  were  the  principal  seats  of  the 

depressed  through  a  jealous  and  partial  course  of  legislation,  carried  on  at 
a  far-distant  seat  of  government,  by  a  hostile  majorit}',  in  an  unknown 
tongue."    Senate  Doc,  24th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  Vol.  VI,  No.  415,  p.  4. 

'  Art.  rV,  Sec.  13.  "The  congress  shall,  as  early  as  possible,  introduce, 
by  statute,  the  common  law  of  England,  with  such  modifications  as  om- 
circumstances,  in  their  judgment,  may  require;  and  in  all  criminal  cases 
the  common  law  shall  be  the  rule  of  the  decision." 

General  Provisions,  Sec.  9.  "  Congress  shall  pass  no  laws  to  prohibit 
emigrants  of  the  United  States  of  America  from  bringing  their  slaves 
into  the  republic  with  them,  and  holding  them  by  the  same  tenure  oy 
which  such  slaves  were  held  in  the  United  States,  nor  shall  congress  have 
power  to  emancipate  slaves;  nor  shall  any  slaveholder  be  allowed  to  eman- 
cipate his  or  her  slave  or  slaves,  without  the  consent  of  congress,  unless 
he  or  she  shall  send  his  or  her  slave  or  slaves  without  the  hmits  of  the 
republic.  No  free  person  of  African  descent,  either  in  whole  or  in  part, 
shall  be  permitted  to  reside  permanently  in  the  republic,  without  the 
consent  of  congress."  Senate  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  Vol.  VI,  No. 
415,  pp.  10, 14. 


MASSACRE  AT   FOBT   ALAMO.  569 

"  conspiracy  "  to  sever  Texas  from  Mexico;  ^  yet  several  other 
slave  states  soon  surpassed  tliem  in  this,  with  vigorous  and 
active  friendship."''  But  even  some  of  the  free  states  scarcely 
lagged  behind  the  latter.^  Universal  sympathy  with  their 
countrj-men  and  a  desire  for  more  territory  and  "scrip"  were 
the  moving  causes  at  the  outset,  but  to  these  causes  the 
frightful  mode  of  warfare  of  the  Mexicans  added  still  another. 
Two  horrible  and  bloody  deeds  following  immediately  the 
one  on  the  other  —  the  massacre  of  the  brave  defenders  of 
Fort  Alamo  on  the  6th  of  March,  and  the  butchering  of 
Colonel  Fannin  and  his  people  at  Goliad  on  the  27th  of 
March,  made  still  more  despicable  by  a  wicked  breach  of 
word*  —  produced  the  greatest  indignation  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States.  If  there  had  ever  been  any  doubt  as  to  what 
extent  the  population  of  the  Union  would  give  aid  to  the 
insurgents,  they  might  now  rely  with  certainty  that  they 
would  be  supported  until  they  had  reached  their  end.     But 

'  Speech  .  .  .  from  the  16th  of  June  to  the  7th  of  July,  1838,  p.  123. 

*  "  In  Louisiana,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Georgia,  and  other  states,  money 
had  been  subscribsd,  and  volunteer  companies  enrolled,  to  aid  their  cause. 
The  sums  contributed  were  not  large,  nor  the  number  of  auxiliaries  consid- 
erable —  [this  is  not  correct,  if  they  are  not  judged  in  themsalves  but  ac- 
cording to  thair  ratio  to  the  surprisingly  small  aggregate  means  with  which 
the  independence  of  Texas  was  achieved] — but  they  arrived  at  a  season- 
able time,  and  were  granted  with  an  enthusiastic  spirit."  Kennedy,  Texas, 
II,  p.  165. 

'Charles  Hammond  said  at  Cincinnati:  "  Am  I  not  correct,  when  I  say 
men  and  arms,  for  military  purposes,  have  been  furnished  here?  Has  it 
not  been  boasted  that  the  cannon  used  at  San  Jacinto  was  supplied  by 
Cincinnati?  Is  it  not  a  fact,  that  every  stand  of  public  arms  deposited  at 
this  place,  by  the  state,  have  been  sent  to  Texas,  with  the  connivance  ot 
those  who  had  charge  of  them?  And  can  any  man  seriously  suppose  that 
the  real  character  of  these  things  can  be  dianged,  by  calling  the  men 
*  emigrants '  and  the  arms  '  hollow  ware? '  "  "  Cincinnati  Daily  Gazette." 
The  Wivr  in  Texas,  p.  4'?. 

*  See  the  particulars  in  the  article,  Mexico  and  Texas,  in  the  "  Demo- 
cratic Review,"  October,  1833,  pp.  132-145. 


570  Jackson's  adj^qnisteation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tlie  revolutionists  liad  never  entertained  any  doubt  whatever 
on  this  point.  Houston,  to  whom  the  chief  command  was 
committed,  openly  said  that  without  this  aid  victory  was 
impossible.^  And  Samuel  Carson,  the  secretary  of  state  of 
the  revolutionary  government,  advised  the  general,  in  a  let- 
ter of  the  14th  of  April,  not  to  permit  himself  to  come  to  a 
decisive  war,  but  to  fall  back  towards  the  Sabine,  for  the 
reason  that  he  was  able  to  assure  him  definitely  of  the  early 
arrival  of  a  considerable  number  of  volunteers  from  the 
United  States."^ 

There  was  no  longer  any  time  for  delay,  but  yet  the  decis- 
ion was  given  by  citizens  of  the  United  States.  It  was  given 
on  the  21st  of  April,  at  San  Jacinto.  Santa  Anna,  who  led 
the  "  battle  "  personally,  is  said  to  have  had  one  thousand  five 
hundred  men,  while  the  Texan  "army"  under  Houston 
amounted  to  only  eight  hundred  men,  of  whom  it  is  said  not 
more  than  fifty  were  citizens  of  Texas.'  Spite  of  their  enor- 
mously greater  numbers  the  Mexicans  were  defeated,*  and 

'  Houston  to  General  Dunlap,  of  Nashville :  "  For  a  portion  of  this  force 
we  must  look  to  the  Unitad  States.  It  cannot  reach  us  too  soon.  There 
is  but  one  feeling  in  Texas,  in  my  opinion,  and  that  is  to  establish  the  in- 
dependence of  Texas,  and  to  be  attached  to  the  United  States."  The  War 
in  Texas,  p.  32. 

*  Yoakum,  History  of  Texas,  H,  p.  169. 

'"North  American  Raview,"  July,  1838,  p.  254.  Wise,  of  Vurginia, 
certainly  a  witness  not  to  be  thought  too  lightly  of,  said,  in  1842,  in  the 
house  of  representatives:  "It  was  they  [the  people  of  the  great  valley  of 
the  Mississippi!  that  conquered  Santa  Anna  at  San  Jacinto;  and  three- 
fourths,  of  them  [!],  after  winning  that  glorious  field,  had  peaceably  re- 
turned to  their  homes  "  (that  is,  to  the  United  States).  Niles,  LXIV,  p. 
174. 

*  Houston's  report  of  the  25th  of  April,  to  the  president,  D.  G.  Burnet,  is 
a  masterpiece  of  vain-glorious  braggardism.  Santa  Anna  had  one  thou- 
sand five  hundred  men;  of  these  there  were,  dead,  six  hundred  and  thirty; 
wounded,  two  hundred  and  eight;  prisoners,  seven  hundred  and  thirty;  a 
total  of  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty-eight,  or  sixty-eight  more 
than  the  aggregate.    On  the  other  hand,  the  loss  of  the  Texans  is  given, 


SANTA   ANNA    CAPTURED.  571 

on  the  followinfj  day  Santa  Anna  himself  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  Texans,^ 

Santa  Anna  was  granted  his  life,  although  he  had  forfeited 
it  ten  times  over  by  the  crime  at  Goliad.  The  Texana  were 
not  determined  to  spare  him  by  magnanimity  alone;  Santa 
Anna  was  to  help  them  towards  obtaining  the  recognition  of 
their  independence.  As  long  as  he  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy,  he  readily  did  all  in  his  power  to  help  accomplish 
this  end.  lie  closed  an  armistice,  obligated  himself  to  vacate 
Texas  entirely,  and  commissioned  General  Filisola  to  bring 
about  in  Mexico  the  negotiations  promised  by  him  in  rela- 
tion to  the  independence  of  Texas.  But  congress  declared 
all  that  the  president  should  do,  while  imprisoned,  to 
be  not  binding  on  the  republic  in  any  manner.  Hence  it 
was  not,  by  any  means,  undoubted  that  the  victory  of  San 
Jacinto  had  put  an  end  to  the  supremacy  of  Mexico  over 
Texas  forever.  Now,  as  well  as  before,  the  issue  of  the  rev- 
olution might  —  if  it  be  not  more  correct  to  say  that  it  had 
to  —  depend  on  the  attitude  of  the  United  States. 

The  United  States  have  shown  themselves,  for  the  most 
part,  not  over-strict  in  the  observance  of  their  duties  as  neu- 
trals. As  a  rule,  the  government  has  claimed  a  greater  ab- 
sence of  responsibility  in  reference  to  the  action  of  individual 
citizens  than  European  states  are  wont  to  claim.  Neutrality 
laws  have  been  passed,  but  —  to  use  a  mild  expression  —  the 
zeal  in  enforcing  their  observance  has  not  been  great.  When- 
ever their  sympathy  or  antipathy  came  into  pl.ny  they  have 
always  given  evidence  of  a  disposition  to  do  only  what  they 
were  absolutely  obliged  to  do.  Whenever  complaint  had 
been  made,  they  willingly  answered  by  asking  for  the  proofs, 
or  they  carried  on  the  investigation  in  such  a  manner  that  a 

two  dead,  and  twenty -three  wounded.  Sen.  Doc,  24th  Congr.,  Ist  Sess., 
No.  415,  pp.  20-22. 

'  See  the  particulars  in  the  *'  Democratic  Review,"  December,  1838,  pp. 
30">-320. 


572  jackson'b  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

result  was  scarcely  possible.  Complaints,  no  matter  how  great 
and  unquestionably  justified  they  may  have  been,  have  been 
1  ej  eatedly  met  by  the  plea  of  the  want  of  power  of  the  federal 
authorities,  a  plea  which  has  always  been  pushed  tj  the  ex- 
treme, and  the  complainants  have  been  obliged  to  be  satis- 
fied with  the  simple  consolation  that  not  a  finger  would  bo 
raised  if  the  guilty  ones  should  receive  the  deserved  chastise- 
ment from  their  hands;  but  whenever  fate  overtook  tlie 
guilty  and  they  were  threatened  with  serious  danger,  the 
United  States  went  as  far  in  the  other  direction  as  seemed 
at  all  permissible,  to  avert  the  impending  danger  from  them. 
Whether  and  when  the  United  States  went  so  far  in  this 
direction  as  to  make  it  possible  to  convict  tliem  of  a  formal 
breach  of  neutrality,  may  remain  undecided  here.  These 
are  questions  in  which  he  will  always  have  the  last  word 
who  will  not  permit  himself  to  be  convinced.  This  much  is 
incontestable,  that  the  United  States,  on  repeated  occasions, 
have  not  performed  their  duties  of  neutrality  in  the  manner 
in  which  it  becomes  a  great  power  to  perform  them;  that  is, 
they  have  not  honestly  endeavored  to  meet  their  interna- 
tional obligations,  not  only  according  to  their  letter  but  their 
spirit;  no  loop-hole  which  the  letter  afforded  them  have  they 
scrupled  to  use  when  it  suited  them  to  use  it. 

In  the  case  before  us  also,  great  stress  is  laid  on  it  by  many, 
that  the  government  of  the  Union  cannot  be  shown  to  have 
been  guilty  of  any  international  impropriety,  much  as  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  Texas  revolution  was  the  work  of 
citizens  of  the  United  States.^  This  may  remain  unexam- 
ined. It  is  sufficient  for  the  judgment  of  history,  if  it  can 
be  proved  that  the  government  of  the  Union  did  its  best  to 
throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  Mexicans,  and  to  clear  the 
road  for  the  Texans.    And  the  proof  of  this  may  be  produced. 

'  "  Thus  the  government  of  the  United  States  did  what  it  could  to  pre- 
eerve  its  faith  with  Mexico,  and  the  people  did  what  they  could  to  aid 
Texas."    Yoakum,  History  of  Texas,  II,  p.  160. 


THE   UNION   AND    NEUTRALITT.  573 

Jackson,  in  bis  eighth  animal  message  (December  6, 1836), 
gave  expression  to  the  conviction,  that  even  the  severest  judge 
could  find  no  ground  for  any  reproach  against  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Union.^  And  even  one  year  previous,  the  senate 
committee  on  foreign  affairs  had  borne  witness  for  the  gov- 
ernment that  it  had,  with  blameless  conscientiousness,  been 
industrious  in  performing  its  duties  as  a  neutral.'  It  cer- 
tainly had  seemed  suflScient  to  these  gentlemen  that  the  ob- 
servance of  the  old  neutrality  laws  was  commanded.  The 
^Mexican  ambassador,  Gorostiza,  on  the  other  hand,  believed 
himself  entitled  to  request  that  force  should  be  given  to  this 
command.  This  wish  was  certainly  not  so  entirely  without 
foundation,  when  the  American  newspapers  conveyed  the 
information  that  bodies  of  volunteers  numbering  hundreds 
were  marching  through  the  cities  to  the  sound  of  music,  on 
their  way  to  Texas.'  Of  what  use  to  the  Mexicans  were  all 
commands  to  observe  the  neutrality  laws,  when  Texan  re- 
cruiting officers  carried  on  their  business  as  openly  and  un- 

'  "  I  trust  that  it  will  be  found,  on  the  most  severe  scrutiny,  that  our 
iicts  have  strictly  corresponded  with  our  professions.'*  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II, 
p.  1029. 

• "  The  government  of  the  United  States  has  taken  no  part  in  the  con- 
test which  has  unhappily  (!)  existed  between  Texas  and  Mexico.  It  has 
avowed  the  intention,  and  taken  measures  to  maintain  a  strict  neutrality 
towards  the  beUigerents.  If  individual  citizens  of  the  United  States,  im- 
pelled by  sympathy  for  those  who  w.ere  believed  to  be  struggling  for  liberty 
and  independence  against  oppression  and  tyranny,  have  engaged  in  the 
contest,  it  has  been  without  the  authority  (!)  of  their  government.  On  the 
contrary,  the  laws  which  have  been  hitherto  found  necessary  or  expedient 
to  prevent  citizens  of  the  United  States  from  taking  part  in  foreign  wars 
have  been  directed  to  be  enforced."  Report  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations,  June  18,  1836.  Sen.  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  Ist  Sess.,  Vol. 
VI,  No.  406,  p.  2. 

*  "  This  morning  more  than  two  hundred  men,  commanded  by  Colonel 
Wilson,  and  on  their  way  to  Texas,  passed  this  place  in  the  Tuskina,  with 
drums  beating  and  fifes  pla)dng;  they  will  be  followed  by  three  hundred 
more,  all  from  old  Kentucky."    The  Grand  Gulf  (Miss.)  Advertiser. 


574  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

disturbed  as  onlj  the  recmiting  oflScers  of  the  government 
of  the  Union  could  have  done,  or  when  whole  squadrons 
were  fitted  ont  in  the  harbors  of  the  United  States  for  the 
use  of  the  Texans,  and  Texan  vessels  were  saluted  with  can- 
non as  ships  of  war?  ^  This  was  bad  for  Mexico.  But  what 
more  could  the  government  of  the  Union  do  than  lament  it? 
Its  oflScials  wrote  to  it  that  the  volunteers  were  "emigrants," 
and  the  Union  could  not  prohibit  emigration  to  please  Mexico.' 
Gorostiza,  however,  not  only  reproached  the  government 
of  the  Union  with  closing  its  eves  and  ears:  hecliarsred  it 
with  direct  sins  of  commission.  As  early  as  the  14th  of 
May,'1836,  he  asked  the  secretary  of  state  how  he  came  to 
speak  of  a  "Texan  government.'"     If  by  this  designation, 

'  "  .  .  .  pero  por  mas  que  se  hace  cargo  de  la  exagei*acion  y  acaloriamento 
de  la  epoca  presente,  no  puede  con  todo  dejar  de  conocer  que  raucho  que 
esta  pasando  con  gi-ave  prejuicio  de  una  nacion  atniga  se  hubiera  evitado 
quizas  tan  solo  con  que  algunos  de  los  agentes  del  Egecutios  hubieran  sc- 
guido  las  ordenes  que  tenian  de  este,  y  conformadose  a  su  espiritu  y  letra. 
Como,  entronces,  sino,  entre  otros  mil  egemplos,  se  hubiera  podido  equipar 
en  Natchez  una  flotilla  de  siete  buques,  dos  de  ellos  de  vapor,  y  embarca- 
dose  alii  varios  centenares  de  voluntaries?  Como  esta  misma  flotilla  hubiera 
podido  detenerse  luego  en  Orleans  un  gran  numero  de  dias  hasta  que  com- 
pleto  sus  apretos  y  pudo  diryirse  libremente  a  Galveston  bajo  las  ordenes 
del  General  Green  ?  Como  tampoco  se  hubiera  permitido  (Jl  lo  que  dijeron 
los  periodicos  de  Movila  y  Nueva  Orleans)  que  la  goleta  Texana  '  Inde- 
pendencia '  cuando  ultimamente  conditio  S  los  Senrs.  Collingsworth  y  Gray- 
son, hubiera  entrado  en  aquel  puerto  como  buque  de  guerra  y  saludado  ^ 
fuer  de  tal?  Como,  en  fin,  las  llamadas  agendas  Texanas  engancharian 
diaria  y  publicamente  en  casi  todas  las  ciutades  de  la  Union  reclutas  para 
aquel  desgraciado  pais,  y  los  armarian  y  los  embarcarian  por  compaSas? 
Se  puede  hacer  ffcaso  todo  esto  sin  que  lo  sepan  las  autoridades  federales  y 
en  particular  los  oficiales  de  las  respectivas  aduanas?  Y  si  lo  saben  y  lo 
toleran,  no  contravienen  entonces  S  lo  que  su  proprio  Gobiemo  les  tiene 
mandado,  haciendo  ineficiases  las  promesas  de  este,  y  ilusorios  sus  como 
promises?"  Gorostiza  to  Forsyth,  21st  of  July,  1836.  Sen.  Doc.  24th 
Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  39. 

»Ibid.,  pp.  41,  53,54. 

* "  De  lo  contrario,  el  infrascripto  se  creeira  en  la  obligadon  de  declaaxu 


GOKOSTIZA    AND    FORSYTH.  575 

Forsjtli  had  in  view  only  the  actual  condition  of  things, 
without  thereby  wishing  to  indicate  in  any  way  the  position 
which  the  United  States  adopted  on  the  question  of  law,  it 
was,  to  say  the  least,  correct.  Yet  he  certainly  should  have 
spoken  only  of  a  revolutionary  de  facto  government.  The 
legal  tltb  of  Mexico  to  Texas  was  still  unconditionally  rec- 
ognized by  the  United  States.  The  answer  received  by  Gor- 
ostiza  to  the  second  and  much  more  serious  complaint  of  his 
letter  of  the  14th  of  Mav,  involved  this  recognition,  little  as 
that  answer  might  satisfy  Mexico.  Jackson  had  authorized 
General  Gtiines  to  pass  the  Texan  boundary  with  the  troops 
under  his  command,  when  he  had  reason  to  fear  .that  the 
Indians  intended  to  make  an  inroad  into  the  territory  of  the 
United  States.  Gorostiza's  complaint,  on  this  point,  was  met 
by  the  ingenuous  declaration  that  Gaines  was  ordered  not  to 
go  beyond  T^acogdoches;  as  if  a  boundary  violation  could 
take  place  only  when  the  territory  of  a  friendly  state  had  been 
entered  with  armed  force  to  the  extent  of  a  few  hundred 
miles,  and  not  to  the  extent  of  a  dozen  miles  only.*  This 
was  not  apparent  to  Gorostiza,  nor  could  he  be  prevailed  upon 
to  think  that  the  friendly  intentions  by  which  the  United 


quesu  Gobiemo  ni  conoce  tal  Gobiemo  de  Tejas;  ni  sabe  que  lo  conosca 
tatnpoco  el  Gobiemo  Americano.  Lo  nnico  que  el  Gobiemo  de  Mexico 
conoce  de  Teja-s,  es,  que  en  esta  provinda  Mcxicana  babia  unos  colonos  ex- 
trangeros  que  se  habian  comprometido  fi  vivir  bajo  las  leyes  del  pais,  y 
que  estos,  ayudados  por  otros  extrangeros,  ban  levantado  alii  el  estandarte 
de  la  revelion.  Si  Mexico  puede  6  no  reprimir  esta  revelion,  la  experien- 
da  lo  dirfi  bien  pronto;  sobro  todo  si  los  que  no  son  ni  Mexicanos  ni  Te- 
janos  cesan  de  intervenir  ilegal  6  injustamente  en  una  contienda  pura- 
mente  domestica."  Sen.  Doc.  24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  1,  No.  1,  p.  28. 
'  According  to  Forsyth,  the  United  States  could  not  themselves  be  gfuilty 
of  a  violation  of  the  Mexican  boundary  by  any  means,  provided  they  only 
cried  "  Indians!"  He  writes  to  Gorostiza  on  the  10th  of  May:  "  That  to 
protect  Mexico  (!)  from  American  Indians,  and  to  protect  our  frontiers  from 
Mexican  Indians,  our  troops  might,  if  necessary,  be  sent  into  the  heart  of 
Mexico."    Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  p.  26. 


576  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

States  were  moved,  took  awaj  from  him  all  ground  for  com- 
plaint,' 

Moreover,  the  government  of  the  Union  itself  did  not 
ignore  that  it  needed  a  better  legitimation  than  its  friend- 
ship.^   Forsyth  had  written  as  early  as  the  10th  of  May  to 

'  ■'  Tampoco  puede  el  infrascripto  admitir  la  doctrina  de  que  las  tropas 
d9  un  poder  ami^o  esten  autorizadas  para  entrar  de  motu  proprio  en  el  ter- 
ritorio  de  otro  poder  vecino  por  benovolo  que  sea  el  fin  que  se  propongan 
en  eUo,  y  auncuando  resulte  evidentemente  un  bien  para  el  ultimo.  Seme- 
jante  principio  destruira  de  hecho  la  base  en  que  se  funda  la  indepencia 
de  las  naciones;  por  que  lo  que  hoy  se  hiciera  con  sano  deseo  de  ayudar  al 
amigo,  manana  se  podria  intentar  con  objeto  menos  puro;  el  pretexte  seria 
igualmente  plausible."  Sen.  Doc,  24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1, 
p.  27. 

^  How  rightly  Mexico  had  long  estimated  the  friendship  of  the  United 
States,  njay  be  seen  from  the  following  sentences  of  a  report  of  the  secre- 
tary of  state  to  congress :  "The  North  Americans  commence  by  intro- 
ducing themselves  into  the  territory  which  they  covet,  on  pretense  of  com- 
mercial negotiations,  or  of  the  establishment  of  colonies,  with  or  without 
the  assent  of  the  government  to  which  it  belongs.  These  colonies  grow, 
multiply,  become  the  predominant  part  in  the  population ;  and  as  soon  as 
a  support  is  found  in  this  manner,  they  begin  to  set  up  rights  which  it  is 
impossible  to  sustain  in  a  serious  discussion,  and  to  bring  forward  ridicu- 
lous pretensions,  founded  upon  historical  facts  which  are  admitted  by  no- 
body, such  as  La  Salle's  voyages,  now  known  to  be  a  falsehood,  but  which 
serve  as  a  support,  at  this  time,  for  their  claim  to  Texas.  Tliese  extrava- 
gant opinions  are  for  the  first  time  presented  to  the  world  by  unknown 
writers;  and  the  labor  which  is  employed  by  others  in  offering  proofs  and 
reasonings  is  spent  by  them  in  repetitions  and  multiphed  allegations,  for 
the  purpose  of  drawing  the  attention  of  their  fellow  citizens,  not  upon  the 
justice  of  the  proposition,  but  upon  the  advantages  and  interests  to  be 
obtained  or  subverted  by  their  admission.  Their  machinations  in  the 
country  they  wish  to  acquire  are  then  brought  to  Hght  by  the  appearance 
of  explorers,  some  of  whom  settle  on  the  soil,  alleging  that  their  presence 
does  not  affect  the  question  of  the  right  of  sovereignty  or  possession  of  the 
land.  These  pioneers  excite  by  degrees  movements  which  disturb  the 
political  state  of  the  country  in  dispute;  and  then  .follow  discontents  and 
dissatisfaction  calculated  to  fatigue  the  patience  of  the  legitimate  owner, 
and  to  diminish  the  usefulness  of  the  administration  and  of  the  exercise  of 
authority.    When  things  have  come  to  this  pass,  which  is  precisely  the 


GAINES  MAECHES   INTO   TEXAS.  577 

Grorostiza,  that  "  perhaps  there  would  be  no  necessity  of  the 
said  advance  of  General  Gaines."  Now  the  general  an- 
nounced, on  the  28th  of  June,  that  he  had  resolved  to  march 
into  Texas.  According  to  the  account  of  Gorostiza,  he  had 
become  convinced  of  the  "  necessity  "  of  this  step,  by  the 
news  that  some  Caddo  Indians  in  Texas,  and  at  a  distance  of 
from  sixty  to  seventy  miles  from  the  boundary  of  the  United 
States,  had  murdered  two  white  men.  Yet  neither  Gaines 
nor  any  one  else  pretended  that  any  Texan  Indians  had  broken 
into  the  territory  of  the  United  States.     The  troops  of  the 

present  state  of  things  in  Texas,  the  diplomatic  management  commences. 
The  inquietude  they  have  excited  in  the  territory  in  dispute,  the  interests 
of  the  colonists  therein  established,  the  insurrection  of  adventurers  and 
savages  instigated  by  them,  and  the  pertinacity  with  which  the  opinion  is 
set  up  as  to  their  right  of  possession,  become  the  subjects  of  notes  full  of 
expressions  of  justice  and  moderation,  until,  with  the  aid  of  other  incidents, 
which  are  never  wanting  in  the  course  of  diplomatic  relations,  the  desired 
end  is  attained  of  concluding  an  arrangement  onerous  for  one  party  as  it 
is  advantageous  to  the  other.  It  has  been  said  further,  that  when  the 
United  States  of  the  north  have  succeeded  in  giving  the  predominance  to 
the  colonists  introduced  in  the  countries  they  had  in  view,  they  set  up  rights 
and  bring  forward  pretensions  founded  on  disputed  historical  facts,  avail- 
ing themselves  generally,  for  the  purpose,  of  some  critical  conjuncture  to 
which  they  suppose  that  the  attention  of  government  must  be  directed. 
This  policy,  which  has  produced  good  results  to  them,  they  have  com- 
menced carrying  into  effect  with  Texas.  The  public  prints  in  those  states, 
including  those  which  are  more  immediately  under  the  influence  of  their 
government,  are  engaged  in  discussing  the  right  they  imagine  they  have 
to  Ihe  country  as  far  as  the  Rio  Bravo.  Handbills  are  printed  on  the  same 
subject  and  thrown  into  general  circulation,  whose  object  is  to  persuade  and 
convince  the  people  of  the  utility  and  expediency  of  the  meditated  project. 
Some  of  them  have  said  that  Providence  had  marked  out  the  Rio  Bravo 
as  the  natural  boundary  of  those  states,  which  has  induced  an  English 
writer  to  reproach  them  with  an  attempt  to  make  Providence  the  author 
of  their  usurpations;  but  what  is  most  remarkable  is,  that  they  have  com- 
menced that  discussion  precisely  at  the  same  time  they  saw  us  engaged  in 
repelling  the  Spanish  invasion,  believing  that  our  attention  would,  for  a 
long  time,  be  thereby  withdrawn  from  other  things."  Cited  by  Adams  in 
his  "speech  of  June  16th  to  July  7th,  1838,  pp.  116,  117.  •  . 

37 


578  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

Union  marclied  into  Mexican  territory  because  a  general, 
for  some  reasons  which  seemed  to  him  suflBcient,  believed 
that  the  Indians  manifested  hostile  intentions.  To  draw  au- 
thority for  this  from  the  law  of  nations  was  a  monstrous  ab- 
surdity; yet  it  was  not  so  monstrous  but  that  the  com- 
mittee of  the  senate  on  foreign  affairs  became  guilty  of  it. 
And  it  was  scarcely  less  absurd  —  as  that  same  committee 
also  did — to  appeal  to  the  right  of  self-defense.^  Plainly, 
one  can  defend  himself  only  when  attacked;  but  no  attack  of 
any  kind  had  been  made.  But  if  the  United  States  could 
rely  neither  on  the  law  of  nations  nor  the  right  of  self-de- 
fense, there  remained  nothing  to  them  but  the  thirty-third 
article  of  the  treaty  of  the  5th  of  April,  1831,  in  which  both 
states  mutually  obligated  themselves  "  to  restrain  by  force 
all  hostilities  and  incursions  on  the  part  of  the  Indian  na- 
tions living  within  their  respective  boundaries."^  That  the 
powers  had  not  thus  mutually  given  each  other  the  right  to 
enter  each  other's  home  with  armed  force  when  they  only 
feared  Indian  hostilities  is  entirely  self-evident,  and  Goros- 
tiza  was  evidently  right  when  he  said  that  the  United  States 
would  make  a  very  wry  face  if  it  should  occur  to  a  Mexican 
general  to  march  into  Natchitoches  under  the  same  pretext.' 

' "  If  he  [the  president]  entertained  reasonable  apprehensions  that  these 
savages  meditated  an  attack  from  the  Mexican  territory  against  the  de- 
fenceless citizens  along  our  frontier,  was  he  obUged  to  order  our  troops  to 
stand  upon  the  Une  and  wait  until  the  Indians,  who  know  no  rule  of  war- 
fare but  indiscriminate  carnage  and  plunder,  should  actually  invade  our 
territory?  To  state  the  proposition  is  to  answer  the  question.  Under  such 
circumstances,  our  forces  had  a  right,  both  by  the  law  of  nations  and  the 
great  and  imiversal  law  of  self-defense,  to  take  a  position  in  advance  of 
our  frontier."  Keport  of  the  18th  of  February,  1837.  The  reporter  was 
Buchanan.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  pp.  195,  196. 

»Stat.  atL.,  VIII,  p.  424. 

•Gorostiza  to  Dickins  [acting  secretary  of  state].  Philadelphia,  August 
4,  1836:  "  Pero  la  obhgacion  que  alii  contratan  los  dos  Gobiemos  ni  es,  ni 
puede  Bar,  otra  que  la  da  impedir  sobra  su  proprio  terreno  que  sua  respec- 


GOBOSTIZA'S   CX)MPAKI80N.  579 

This  comparison,  indeed,  was  lame  in  a  not  immaterial 
point.  The  United  States  had,  under  no  circumstances,  the 
formal  right  to  permit  their  troops  to  euter  Mexican  terri- 
tory, because  they  simply  assumed  that  their  boundaries  or 
their  citizens  were  threatened  with  danger  from  Texan  In- 
dians, for  the  reason  that  Mexico  would  not  or  could  not 
fulfill  her  treaty  obligations;  but  there  might,  indeed,  be 
circumstances  which,  spite  of  this,  made  it  actually  appear 
entirely  justifiable.  The  government  of  the  Union  claimed 
that  this  was  the  case,  since  Mexico  was  not  able  to  exercise 
any  compulsion  on  the  Indians,  because  the  "  army  "  of  the 
insurgents  stood  between  the  latter  and  the  Mexican  troops. 
This  was  an  incontestable  fact,  and  if  the  Indians  were  en- 
gaged in  hostile  plots,  an  endangerment  of  the  limits  could 
be  prevented  in  fact  only  in  case  the  United  States  them- 
selves took  care  to  do  so.  Hence,  the  moral  judgment  to  be 
passed  on  the  course  of  procedure  of  the  government  of  the 
Union  depended  only  on  whether  it  had  pertinent  reasons 
for  fear. 

In  a  conversation  with  Gorostiza,  on  the  23d  of  September, 
Forsyth  promised  to  withdraw  the  troops  of  the  Union  from 
Texan  territory  whenever  it  was  confirmed  that,  as  the  am- 
bassador said,  all  the  reports  concerning  the  threatening  atti- 
tude of  the  Indians  were  malicious  inventions.*  Hence,  there 
was  no  pretense  of  perfect  conviction  that  one  had  not  to  do 
here  with  a  false  alarm.     Jackson,  however,  did  not  believe 

tivos  Indies  hastilizen  el  territorio  amigo.  Do  lo  contrario  se  hubieran 
dado  la  facultad  de  invadirse  mutualmente,  so  pretext©  de  socorrerse. 
Estiptdacion,  por  cierto,  que  tendria  el  merito  de  la  novedad.  Estipula- 
cion  tambien  que  daxia  el  dia  de  manna  al  primer  (Jeneral  Mexicano  que 
llegara  al  Sabina,  la  facultad,  de  tomar  posicion  en  Natchidoches,  6  mas 
aca,  para  escarmentar  des  de  alii  fi  las  tribus  de  Indies  que  vagan  al  otro 
lado  del  Misisippi,  y  que  pudieran  manifestar  la  intendon  de  pasar  a 
Mexico.  Lo  consontiria  entoncea  el  Gobiemo  de  los  Estados  Unidos?" 
Sen.  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  2d  Seaa.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  48. 
» Ibid.,  p.  84. 


580  Jackson's  administration  —  anttexation  of  texajs. 

that  he  needed  to  be  thus  convinced  in  order  to  his  justifica- 
tion. It  was  self-evident  to  him  that  he  was  entitled  to  occupy 
the  territory  of  Mexico,  although  he  did  not  hesitate  to  admit 
that  altogether  too  much  noise  was  made  about  the  danger 
from  Indians.  Simultaneously  with  the  information  above 
mentioned  conveyed  to  the  general  government,  that  he  had 
resolved  to  march  into  Mexican  territory,  Gaines  had  called 
upon  the  governors  of  four  states  to  furnish  a  military  con- 
tingent. But  Jackson  had  not  approved  this  desire,  for  the 
reason  that  there  was  no  occasion  for  serious  apprehension.' 
Gaines  himself  admitted  this  view  to  be  correct,  and  in- 
formed the  governors  that  he  was  no  longer  in  need  of  the 
militia.^  The  president  admitted  that  the  feeling  of  the 
population  of  the  United  States  made  it  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  government  to  refrain  from  taking  any  measure  not 
demanded  by  evident  necessity,^  and  he  conceded  that  the 

'He  wrote  to  Governor  Cannon  of  Tenn^^ssee:  "It  is  in  reference  to 
these  obligations  [complete  neutrality!  that  the  requisition  of  General 
Gaines  in  the  present  instance  must  be  considered,  and  unless  there  is  a 
stronger  necessity  for  it,  it  should  not  be  sanctioned.  Should  this  necessity 
not  be  manifest,  when  it  is  well  known  that  the  disposition  to  befriend  the 
Texans  is  a  common  feeling  with  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  it  is 
obvious  that  that  requisition  may  furnish  a  reason  to  Mexico  for  supposing 
that  the  government  of  the  United  States  may  be  induced  by  inadequate 
causes  to  overstep  the  hues  of  the  neutrality  which  it  professes  to  maintain. 
.  .  .  There  are  no  reasons  set  forth  in  the  requisition  which  the  general 
has  since  made  upon  you,  to  justify  the  belief  that  the  force  above  enumer- 
ated will  be  insufficient,  and  I  cannot,  therefore,  sanction  it  at  the  present 
time.  To  sanction  that  requisition  for  the  reasons  which  accompany  it, 
would  warrant  the  belief  that  it  was  done  to  aid  Texas,  and  not  from  a 
desire  to  prevent  an  infringement  of  our  territorial  and  national  rights. 
.  .  .  There  is  ...  no  information  to  justify  the  apprehension  of 
hostilities  to  any  serious  extent  from  the  Western  Indians."  Sen.  Doc, 
24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  61. 

« Ibid.,  pp.  43,  44. 

*  The  president  writes  to  Gaines  on  the  4th  of  September:  "...  The 
troops  of  the  United  States  must  not  occupy  an  advanced  post  in  the  Mexi- 
can territory,  unless  it  be  necessary,  unless  the  peace  of  the  frontier  ba 


THE  LAND   SPECULATORS.  58l 

general  to  whom  he  had  given  full  discretion  in  relation  to 
entering  Mexican  territory  had  wished  to  take  a  very  im- 
portant step  without  being  pushed  thereto  by  such  a  neces- 
Hity.  And,  notwithstanding  this,  Jackson  found  it  extremely 
noteworthy  that  Mexico  complained  of  the  incursion  of  the 
Union  troops.  Gorostiza  was  obliged  to  hear  it  said  to  him 
that  it  would,  after  all,  be  much  "'more  reasonable"  to 
assume  that  Gaines  had  been  convinced  of  the  necessity  of 
the  step,  and  was  moved  by  the  best  motives,  than  that  he 
liad  desired  to  give  aid  indirectly  to  the  Texans.^ 

Could  Jackson  possibly  believe  that  the  entry  was  really 
necessary,  or  that  even  Gaines  had  hona  fide  considered  it 
so?  This  seems  unthinkable,  even  on  the  supposition  that 
the  president  was  not  better  informed  than  every  reader  of 
the  newspapers.  Immediately  after  the  battle  of  San  Jacinto, 
the  public  were  informed  by  parties  authorized  to  give  the 
information,  that  the  land  speculators  were  endeavoring  to 
conjure  up  the  Indian  spectre,  in  order  that  with  its  aid 
they  might  bring  it  to  such  a  pass  that  the  United  States 
might  fight  out  the  cause  of  the  Texans  for  them.'     Hence 

actually  disturbed,  or  there  be  a  moral  certainty  that  the  Indians  are  in 
hostile  array  for  the  purpose,  and  are  obtaining  the  meana  of  operation 
from  the  Mexican  territory."  In  another  letter  of  the  same  date  we  road: 
"  Should  Gen.  Gaines  find  the  statement  respecting  the  Mexican  general's 
agency  in  exciting  the  Indians  to  war  against  the  United  States  to  be  un- 
true, and  the  Indians  disposed  to  remain  at  peace,  he  will,  of  course,  im- 
mediately withdraw  his  forces  from  Nacogdoches  to  his  place  of  encamp- 
ment on  the  Sabine."  Ibid.,  pp.  85,  86.  It  therefore  amounted  to  this, 
that  the  Union  troops  might  enter  Mexican  territoiy  for  their  information. 
No  notice  was  taken  of  the  fact  that  Gorostiza  offered:  "  To  guarantee  that 
the  fact  of  any  movement  of  the  Indians  being  solicited  by  Mexico  or  Mex- 
icans was  false." 

•  Sen.  Doc.,  21th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  p.  46. 

*  General  Macomb*  writes,  on  the  26th  of  April:  "He  [the  governor  of 
Louisianal  is  further  impressed  with  the  belief  that  it  was  a  scheme  of 
those  interested  in  the  Texan  speculations,  who  had  been  instrumental  in 
inalang  Gen.  Gaines  believe  that  the  Mexican  authorities  were  tampering 


582  Jackson's  administratiok  —  annexation  of  texas. 

all  remarks  had  to  be  received  with  redoubled  caution.  But 
Gaines  not  only  lent  them  his  ear  altogether  too  easily,  but 
every  one  knew  how  decidedly  his  sympathies  were  with  the 
Texans.^  Or  did  Jackson  alone  first  have  to  learn  through 
Gorostiza  how  confidential  a  correspondence  had  been  carried 
on  between  the  American  and  the  Texan  headquarters,  and 
how  the  Indian  alarm  always  followed  on  the  heels  of  the 
advance  of  the  Mexican  troops?*    Houston  considered  Texas 

with  the  Indians  within  our  boundaries,  and  at  the  same  time  exciting,  by 
false  expectations  here,  the  sympathies  of  the  people  in  favor  of  the  Tex- 
ans,  with  the  view  of  inducing  the  authorities  of  the  United  States  to  lend 
their  aid  in  raising,  in  this  city,  a  force  composed  of  interested  pei-sons, 
which  force  should  move  to  the  Texan  frontiers  under  the  call  of  Gen. 
Gaines;  and  afterwards,  under  false  pretensions,  actually  mai'ch  into  Texas, 
and  lake  part  in  the  war  now  raging  between  the  Texans  and  the  govern- 
ment of  Mexico;  and  all  this  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States,  and,  con- 
sequently, with  the  implied  sanction  of  the  government;  thus  giving  to  the 
people  of  Texas  the  hope  of  relying  on  the  government  of  the  United  States 
for  their  protection  and  support;  and  to  the  government  of  Mexico  a  posi- 
tive evidence  that  the  United  States  were  actually  engaged,  contrary  to 
the  treaty  stipulations,  in  a  war  against  that  government."  Globe,  May 
16,  1836.    (*)  1  find  the  name  written  McGomb,  also. 

'  Gaines  writes,  as  early  as  the  29th  of  March,  1836,  to  the  secretary  of 
war:  "  Should  I  find  any  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  Mexicans  or  their 
red  brethren  to  menace  our  frontier,  I  cannot  but  deem  it  my  duty,  not 
only  to  hold  the  troops  of  my  command  in  readiness  for  action  in  defense 
of  our  slender  frontier,  but  to  anticipate  their  lawless  movements  by  cross- 
ing our  supposed  or  imaginary  (!)  national  boundary."  Exec.  Doc,  24th 
Congr.,  Ist  Sess.,  Vol.  VI. 

'  El  infrascripto  se  abstendrtl  sin  embargo  por  ahora  de  calificar  este  pre- 
texto  [the  murdering  of  two  whites  by  Caddo  Indians,  already  mentioned], 
tampoco  quiere  entrar  por  ahora  en  el  examen  de  ciertos  pormenores  que 
han  transpirado  acerca  de  una  correspondencia  que  parece  ha  mediado 
entre  dicho  General  y  el  comandate  de  las  fuerzas  Texanas,  de  naturaleza 
no  muy  neutral  por  cierto,  si  es  que  en  ella  se  dice  en  efecto  lo  que  algunos 
periodicos  han  indicado:  tampoco  Uamara  por  ahora  la  atencion  del  SeSor 
Dickins  sobre  una  coincidencia  bien  singular,  y  es  que  solo  cuando  se  ade- 
lantan  las  tropas  Mexicanas  en  Tejas,  es  cuando  se  inventan  6  se  exageraa 
alii  los  excesos  de  los  Indios  para  que  llegan  sin  duda  fi  loss  oidos  del  Gen- 
eral Gaines.''    Sen.  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  44. 


GOEOSTIZA   DEPARTS.  683 

and  the  United  States  as  perfectly  and  firmly  united  in  in- 
terests. The  hero  of  San  Jacinto  was  so  raagnaniraous  as  to 
wish  to  hold  his  powerful  arm  over  the  troops  of  the  Union.* 
Tlie  Texan  army  which  wished  to  grant  its  powerful  protec- 
tion to  the  imperilled  Union  against  the  Mexicans  and  Indi- 
ans, consisted,  indeed,  no  lon<i;er  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  but  in  part  of  troops  of  the  Union.  Gaines's  soldiers 
kept  on  their  uniforms,  but  preferred  to  go  to  theTexans, 
where  there  was  something  to  do;  and  when  the  Union 
officers  for  shame's  sake  demanded  tiieir  deserters  back,  their 
Texan  colleagues  answered  with  a  pitying  shrug  of  the 
shoulders.-  A  more  shameless  comedy  of  neutrality  was 
never  played. 

Gorostiza  asked  for  his  passports  on  the  15  th  of  October,' 
because  Dickins  had  conveyed  to  him  two  days  before  the  in- 
formation that  the  Union  troops  could  not  be  recalled  from 
Texas.     Spite  of  this,  Jackson,  in  his  message  of  the  6  th  of 

*  Grorostiza  to  Dickins,  Oct.  1,  1836:  "  En  este  momento  leo  con  indignac 
don  en  los  periodicos  de  Nueva  Orleans  que  acaban  de  llegar  una  proclama 
del  General  Houstxjn  que  confirma  todos  mis  recelos,  y  realiza  todaa  mis 
predicciones.  En  ella  el  General  Houston  llamandose  Presidenfce  de  Texas, 
y  80  pretexto  que  unos  Indios  le  ban  dicbo  que  otros  Indios  es  union  con 
los  Mexicanos  (que  no  se  babian  movido  todavia  de  Matamoras)  ivan  &  atacar 
&  Nacogdocbes,  ordena  que  se  pongan  sobre  las  armas  algunoe  naelicianos 
de  los  condados  in  mediatos  para  sostenar  las  tropas  de  los  Estados  Unidos 
que  guamecen  aquel  punto,  en  tanto  que  el  General  Gaines  los  envia  refu- 
erzos :  en  ella  tambien  prerieno  6  los  oficiales  de  dicbos  milicianos  que  & 
medida  que  lleguen  &  Nacogdocbes,  se  presenten  al  comadante  de  las  tro- 
pas de  los  Estados  Unidos  y  que  den  6  sus  ordenes."    Ibid.,  p.  90. 

* Tbe  "  Pensacola  Gazette  "  writes:  "  About  the  middle  of  last  montb. 
General  Gaines  sent  an  officer  of  the  United  States  army  into  Texas  to  re- 
claim some  deserters.  He  found  them  already  enlisted  in  the  Texan  ser- 
vice to  the  number  of  two  hundred.  They  still  wore  the  uniform  of  our 
army,  but  refused,  of  course,  to  return.  The  commander  of  the  Texan 
forces  was  applied  to,  to  enforce  their  return;  but  his  only  reply  was,  that 
the  soldiers  might  go,  but  he  had  no  authority  to  send  them  back-  This 
is  a  new  view  of  our  Texan  relations."    The  War  in  Texas,  p.  29. 

»Sen.  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  VoL  I,  No.  1,  p.  100. 


584   JACKSOJS-'S  ADMlNiSTRATION ANNKXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

December,  declared  it  to  be  all  the  "  more  singular  "  that  the 
ambassador  had  departed  "  on  the  sole  ground  "  of  this  ad- 
vance, since  it  was  well  known  to  him  how  much  he,  Jackson, 
had  doubted  whether  there  were  pertinent  reasons  for  it.* 
Gorostiza  was  certainly  right  in  ascribing  it  to  the  deficiency 
of  his  power  of  comprehension  (quiza  per  felta  de  propria 
comprehension),  that  people  could  not  at  all  understand  one 
another  in  this  way.  It  waa^  indeed,  hard  to  understand  why 
he  was  not  "  reasonable "  enough  to  assume  that  the  United 
States  were  guided  only  by  the  purest  of  intentions.  He  cer- 
tainly was  also  one  of  those  who,  from  their  own  want  of  prin- 
ciple, inferred  that  the  government  of  the  Union  also  knew 
nothing  of  morality.^  Jackson,  himself,  indeed,  acknowledged 
that  the  population  of  the  United  States  was  very  partial  to 
the  Texans,  and  that  the  Union  had  a  great  interest  in  the 
issue  of  the  controversy,  since  it  was  well  known  that  Texas 
desired  to  become  a  part  of  the  Union.^    Should  not  that,  per- 

'  "  You  -will  perceive  by  the  accompanying  documents,  that  the  extraor- 
dinary mission  from  Mexico  has  been  terminated,  on  the  sole  grounds  that 
the  obligations  of  this  government  to  itself  and  to  Mexico,  under  treaty 
stipulations,  have  compelled  me  to  trust  a  discretionary  authority  to  a  high 
officer  of  our  army  to  advance  into  territory  claimed  as  part  of  Texas,  if 
necessary,  to  protect  our  own  or  the  neighboring  (!)  frontier  from  Indian 
depredation.  .  .  .  The  departvure  of  this  minister  was  the  more  sin- 
gular, as  he  was  apprised  that  the  sufficiency  of  the  causes  assigned  for  the 
advance  of  our  troops  by  the  commanding  general  had  been  seriously 
doubted  by  me,"  and  that  the  troops  were  rightfully  on  Mexican  soil,  or 
that  they  would  have  been  already  withdrawn.  Statesm.'s  Man. ,  II,  p.  1030. 

* "  There  are  ahready  those  who,  indi£Ferent  to  principle  themselves,  and 
prone  to  suspect  the  want  of  it  in  others,  charge  us  with  ambitious  designs 
and  insidious  poUcy."    1.  c. 

»  That  the  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  should  feel  strong  preposses- 
sions for  the  one  party  is  not  surprising.  But  this  circumstance  should,  of 
itself,  teach  us  great  caution,  lest  it  lead  us  into  the  great  error  of  suffering 
pubhc  policy  to  be  regulated  by  partiality  or  prejudice;  and  there  are  con- 
siderations connected  with  the  possible  result  of  tliis  contest  between  the 
two  pai-ties  of.so  much  delicacy  and  importance  to  the  United  States,  that 
our  character  requires  that  we  should  neither  anticipate  events  nor  attempt 


CALHOUN   ON   ANNEXATION.  685 

haps,  have  been  sufficient,  without  making  any  unjust  claims 
on  the  president's  intellect,  to  awaken  him  to  an  understand- 
ing  of  Gorostiza's  view  of  the  situation?  It  was  not  only  a 
well-founded  assumption,  and  one  which  dated  farther  back 
than  December,  but  a  fact  of  which  there  was  documentary 
]>roof,  that  Texas  did  not  only  desire  and  labor  for  its  incor- 
l)oration  into  the  Union,  but  that  a  powerful  party  in  the 
Union  also  was  striving  for  the  same  end. 

As  early  as  the  30th  of  May,  1836,  President  Burnett  had 
sent  James  Collingsworth  and  Peter  W.  Grayson  as  commis- 
sioners to  Washington  to  effect  the  recognition  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  Texas  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  to  communicate  the  fact  that  Texas  desired 
to  be  admitted  into  the  Union.*  One  week  previous,  Cal- 
houn had  given  expression  in  congress  to  his  wish  to  see 
the  recognition  of  the  independence  and  the  incorporation 
into  the  Union  treated  at  the  same  time;  that  he  was  in  favor 
of  the  former  as  well  as  of  the  latter,  and  that  in  any  event 
it  would  soon  be  necessary  to  come  to  a  decision  in  relation 
to  both  questions.'  The  agitation  of  these  questions  was  car- 
te control  them.  The  known  desire  of  the  Texans  to  become  a  part  of  our 
system,  although  its  gratification  depends  upon  the  reconcilement  of  vari- 
ous and  conflicting  interests,  necessarily  a  work  of  time,  and  uncertain  in 
itself,  is  calculated  to  expose  our  conduct  to  misconstruction  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world."    Ibid.,  p.  1029. 

'  Yoakum,  History  of  Texas,  II,  p.  176. 

' "  He  had  made  up  his  mind  not  only  to  recognize  the  independence  of 
Texas,  but  for  her  admission  into  this  Union;  and  if  the  Texans  managed 
their  affairs  prudently,  they  would  soon  be  called  upon  to  decide  that  ques- 
tion. No  man  could  suppose  for  a  moment  that  that  country  could  ever 
come  again  under  the  dominion  of  Mexico;  and  he  was  of  opinion  that  it 
was  not  for  our  interests  that  there  should  be  an  independent  community 
between  us  and  Mexico.  There  were  powerful  reasons  why  Texas  should  be 
a  part  of  this  Union.  The  southern  states,  owning  a  slave  population,  were 
deeply  interested  in  preventing  that  country  from  having  tlie  power  to  an- 
noy them;  and  the  navigating  and  manufacturing  interests  of  the  north 
and  east  were  equally  interested  in  making  it  a  part  of  this  Union.  He 
thought  they  would  soon  be  called  on  to  decide  these  questions;  and  when 


586  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ried  on,  both  in  the  United  States  and  Texas,  during  the 
whole  summer,  with  energy,  and  the  most  complete  pub- 
licity.' The  first  elections  under  the  constitution  of  Texas 
took  place  in  the  fall.  The  voters  were  called  upon,  at  the 
same  time,  to  say  what  their  attitude  towards  the  question 
of  annexation  was.  From  all  quarters  affirmative  answers 
were  received,  and  tlie  cabinet  began  to  consult  over  the  con- 
ditions on  which  incorporation  into  the  Union  should  be 
looked  for.'^ 

The  congress  of  the  United  States  had,  in  the  mean  time, 
taken  its  position  on  the  previous  question  of  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  independence  of  Texas,  on  principle.  The  sen- 
ate, on  the  1st  of  July,  unanimously  resolved  that  the  inde- 
pendence of  Texas  should  be  recognized  as  soon  as  it  was 
ascertained  that  it  was  in  a  condition  to  fulfill  the  duties  of 
an  independent  state.  On  the  4th  of  July,  the  last  day  of 
the  session,  the  house  adopted  a  like  resolution  by  a  vote  of 

they  did  act  on  it,  he  was  for  acting  on  both  together — for  recognizing  the 
independence  of  Texas,  and  for  admitting  her  into  the  Union."  May  23, 
1836.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XII,  p.  764. 

'  The  following  resolutions  of  a  meeting  held  at  Nashville  on  the  27th  of 
June,  1836,  are  characteristic:  "It  is  useless  to  close  our  eyes  to  obvious 
facts.  Texas,  in  spite  of  the  utmost  good  faith  in  the  execution  of  treaties, 
by  which  we'hope  this  government  will  always  be  distinguished,  will  draw 
from  these  states  the  means  of  conquering  her  enemies.  .  .  .  Other 
reasons  exist  why  the  United  States  should  recognize  the  independence  of 
Texas  before  the  rise  of  congress,  and  why  further  steps  should  be  taken  in 
reference  to  that  country,  not  necessary  to  be  stated  here."  Sen.  Doc.,  24th 
Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  No.  418,  pp.  4,  6.  Austin  writes  from  New  Orleans  on 
the  16th  of  June,.  1836:  *'  I  shall  do  all  I  can  to  procure  the  annexation  of 
Texas  to  the  United  States,  on  just  and  fair  principles.  Yoakum,  Hist,  of 
Texas,  II,  p.  177. 

*  Report  of  the  Agent  of  the  United  States,  Morfit.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII, 
p.  327.  According  to  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  p.  54,  three  thou- 
sand two  hundred  and  seventy-nine  votes  were  cast  for  annexation  and 
ninety-ona  against  it.  "  The  result  was,  that,  upon  a  full  poll,  but  ninety- 
three  votes  were  given  against  the  annexation."  Messrs.  Van  Zandt  and 
Henderson  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  April  15,  1844.    Calh.'s  Works,  V,  p.  327. 


ANNEXATION  BEFOBE   OONGSESS.  5S7 

one  hundred  and  twentj-eight  against  twenty.*  Jackson, 
however,  now  showed  greater  cautiousness  than  should  have 
been  expected  from  his  course  hitherto.  In  a  special  mes- 
sage of  the  21st  of  December,  1836,  he  plainly  said  that,  in 
his  opinion,  it  was  necessary  to  act  the  part  of  a  calm  spec- 
tator a  while  longer;  that  since  Mexico  was  fitting  out  a  new 
expedition  against  Texas,  it  was  unquestionable  that  selfish 
motives  would  be  ascribed  to  the  United  States  if,  anticipat- 
ing events,  they  should  even  now  pass  a  judgment  in  this 
manner  on  the  issue  of  the  controversy  between  Mexico  and 
its  former  province.^  But  the  patience  of  congress  was  soon 
exhausted.  The  senate,  by  a  vote  of  twenty-three  against 
nineteen,  adopted  a  formal  resolution  of  recognition  on  the 
Ist  of  March,  1837.'  The  house  did  not  want  to  go  so  far. 
It  only  adopted  in  the  appropriation  bill  an  item  for  a  dip- 
lomatic agent  at  the  Texan  government,  who,  however,  was 
to  be  sent  thither  only  when  the  president  should  have  satis- 
fied himself  of  the  actual  independence  of  the  country;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  bill  spoke  again  of  the  "  republic  of 
Texas."*  From  its  wording,  one  might  have  read  equally 
well  either  aye  or  nay;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  step  was 
considered  by  all  who  took  part  in  it  as  a  recognition  of  the 
independence  of  Texas. 

Jackson  had  said  in  the  message  of  the  21st  of  Decem- 
ber, that  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas  should 

'  Deb.  of  Cougr.,  XII,  p.  779,  and  XIU,  p.  43. 

•Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1051,  1062. 

•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  202.  Walker,  of  Mississippi,  the  xaaker  of 
the  motion,  declared:  He  "had  it  from  the  president's  own  lips  that,  if  he 
were  a  senator,  he  would  vote  for  this  resolution." 

*"  .  .  .  for  the  outfit  and  salary  of  a  diplomatic  agent  to  be  sent  to 
the  republic  of  Texas,  whenever  the  president  of  the  United  States  may  re- 
ceive satisfactory  evidence  that  Texas  is  an  independent  power,  and  shall 
deem  it  expedient  to  appoint  such  minister."  Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  170.  The 
wording  may  indeed  be  interpreted  to  the  effect  that  the  expression  "  Re- 
public of  Texas  "  was  not  intended  to  designate  the  actual  Texas. 


588  Jackson's  administbation  —  ahhekatios  of  texas. 

be  delayed  at  least  until  such  time  as  Texas  had  demon- 
strated its  ability  to  assert  it  in  the  most  undoubted  manner.' 
The  senate  had  based  its  resolution  of  recognition  of  the  1st 
of  March  on  the  assumption  that  this  had  happened.''' 
Could  it  entertain  this  view  in  good  faith,  and  could  the  ex- 
ecutive fully  agree  in  this  view,  so  that  according  to  the  pro- 
vision of  the  appropriation  law  of  March  3,  1837,  it  was 
altogether  unquestionably  authorized  to  send  a  diplomatic 
agent?  It  may  be  shown  that  the  answer  would  have  had 
to  be  an  emphatic  no  in  case  the  United  States  desired,  in 
the  future,  industriously  to  assume  the  position  which  alone 
had  any  claim  before  the  forum  of  healthy  common  sense  to 
the  name  of  neutrality. 

A  resolution  of  the  Texan  congress  of  the  22d  of  Decem- 
ber, 1836,  had  authorized  President  Houston  to  enroll  forty 
thousand  volunteers  into  its  service^  Considering  the  con- 
tinually low  state  of  its  finances  and  the  chronic  revolution- 
ary condition  of  Mexico,  such  an  armed  power  was  unques- 
tionably more  than  sufficient  to  frustrate  all  attempts  at 
another  conquest.  The  congress,  however,  had  not  said 
where  the  volunteers  were  to  come  from.  It  could  not  pos- 
sibly have  thought  of  Texas  alone  nor  even  mainly,  since  it 
had  been  able  to  bring  only  3,370  men  to  the  ballot-boxes. 

'  "  Praclence,  therefore,  seems  to  dictate  that  we  should  still  stand  aloof 
and  maintain  our  present  attitude,  if  not  until  Mexico  itself,  or  one  of  the 
great  foreign  powers,  shall  recognize  the  independence  of  the  new  govern- 
ment, at  least  until  the  lapse  of  time  or  the  course  of  events  shall  have 
proved,  bej^ond  cavil  or  dispute,  the  abihty  of  the  people  of  that  country 
to  maintain  their  separate  sovereignty,  and  uphold  the  government  con- 
stituted by  them." 

*  "  Resolved,  That  the  state  of  Texas  having  established  and  maintained 
an  independent  government,  capable  of  performing  those  duties,  foreign 
and  domestic,  which  appertain  to  independent  governments,  and  it  appear- 
ing that  tliere  is  no  longer  any  reasonable  prospect  of  the  successful  prose- 
cution of  the  war  by  Mexico  against  said  state,"  etc. 

*  Gouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas,  p.  55. 


CONDITION  OP  TEXAS.  689 

ITow  large  the  population  of  the  new-born  state,  which  was 
i>n  ;i  par  as  to  extent  with  the  great  powers  of  central  and 
western  Europe,  was,  cannot  be  said  with  even  an  ap- 
j)roximation  to  deiiniteness;  bnt,  according  to  the  highest 
estimation  known  to  us,  it  did  not  exceed  100,000.*  This 
figure,  therefore,  represented  the  armed  force  which,  for 
the  present,  the  settlers,  in  common  with  the  pseudo- 
omigrants  already  arrived,  were  really  able  to  put  in  the 
tield.  According  to  Morfit's  report,  tlie  army  proper  of 
Texas  numbered  two  thousand  two  hundred  men,  and  by 
making  a  levy  of  the  farmers  the  number  of  men  in  the 
tield  could,  for  a  short  time,  be  brought  up  to  five  thousand. 
The  maritime  force  of  the  republic  consisted  of  four  small 
vessels,  with  an  aggregate  of  twenty- nine  cannon.  In  case, 
tlierefore,  that  the  floodgates  of  the  influx  from  the  United 
States  were  closed,  it  was  plain  that  the  Texans  would  have 

'  The  War  in  Texas,  p.  9,  gives  the  population  in  1832-33  at  84,672. 
The  mode  of  expression  is,  however,  not  clear.  Lundy  speaks  later  of 
07,000  inhabitants,  so  that  in  the  first  figure  the  foreign  settlers,  estimated 
j>t  18,000  to  20,000,  do  not  seem  to  be  embraced.  The  government  commis- 
sioner, Almonte,  on  the  other  hand,  estimates  the  population  of  Texas 
proper  in  1834,  at  only  36,300,  of  whom  15,300  were  Indians.  (Kennedy, 
Texas,  II,  p.  79.)  Kennedy  beheves  that  "  Anglo-Texans  "  alone  must 
have  amounted  to  30,000;  2,000  negroes,  t.  e.,  slaves  not  counted.  (Ibid., 
p.  SO.)  Jackson's  agent,  Morfit,  in  1836,  estimates  the  a^regate  popula- 
tion at  65,000,  of  whom  30,000  were  Anglo-American  settlers,  and  3,500 
Spanish  Mexicans.  "  If  I  were  to  take  my  own  judgment  exclusively  on  thia 
matter,  and  were  to  reason  as  to  what  I  have  not  seen  by  that  which  I 
have,  I  should  say  the  population,  exclusive  of  Mexicans,  Indians  and  ne- 
groes, has  never  exceeded  30,000."  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  326.  Lastly, 
Gouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas,  p.  43,  speaks  of  a  "  nation  of  20,000," 
in  which  he  evidently  has  in  view  only  the  controUing  element,  the  Anglo- 
American  settlers.  Channing,  Letter  to  H.  Clay,  on  the  Annexation  of 
Texas,  wiites:  "  It  should  also  be  remembered  that  the  Texans  were  not 
only  a  drop  of  the  bucket  compared  with  the  Mexican  population,  but 
they  were  a  decided  minority  in  the  particular  state  to  which  they  be- 
longed." Channing's  Works,  II,  p.  191.  Here  he  must  have  in  mind, 
CoahuUa  connected  with  Texas. 


590  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

to  have  Falstaffs  unlimited  capacity  for  multiplication,  if 
the  fortj  thousand  men  were  to  be  levied.  And  if  tliey  had 
been  levied,  they  would  have  had  to  put  the  Mexicans  to 
flight  by  their  yells,  unless  they  obtained  more  efllcient  arms 
from  the  United  States.  Nay,  hunger  would  soon  have 
driven  the  five  thousand  and  even  the  two  thousand  two 
hundred  from  the  camp,  were  it  not  that  the  money  neces- 
sary to  procure  them  the  means  of  subsistence  had  been  sent 
them  from  the  United  States.  In  November,  1835,  the 
board  of  revenue  had  resigned  under  the  weight  of  a  debt  of 
thirty- six  dollars.'  Texas  had  subsequently  made  the  most 
energetic  efforts  to  put  its  finances  on  the  footing  of  those 
of  a  great  state,  not,  however,  in  what  concerned  the  receipts, 
but  only  its  debts.  A  law  of  the  20th  of  January  author- 
ized the  emission  of  treasury  notes  to  the  amount  of  one 
huTidred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  on  the  17th  of  No- 
vember, 1837,  the  state  debt  amounted  to  one  million,  ninety 
thousand  nine  hundred  and  eighty-four  dollars,  while  the 
minister  of  finance  was  obliged  to  report  that  the  govern- 
ment had  neither  money  nor  credit  enough  to  purchase  the 
necessary  writing  material.''  Morfit  had,  at  the  end  of  1836, 
expressed  his  wonder  that  the  struggle  for  their  independence 
had  cost  the  Texans  themselves  so  few  men  and  so  little 
money.'    Wlien,  in  spite  of  this,  the  government,  after  a  year, 

'  "  Our  finances  arising  from  the  receipts  for  dues  of  lands  .  .  .  are 
fifty-eight  dollars  and  thirty  cents.  This  money  has  been  exhausted,  and 
an  advance  by  tlie  president  of  the  council  of  thirty-six  dollars."  Report 
to  the  general  consultation.    Gouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas,  p.  18. 

»Gouge,  pp.  27,  72,73. 

*  "  The  present  resources  of  Texas  are  principally  derived  from  the  sym- 
pathies of  their  neighbors  and  friends  in  the  United  States,  and  by  loans 
upon  the  credit  of  the  state.  The  donations  from  the  former  quarter  havj 
been,  and  will  no  doubt  continue  to  be,  very  liberal,  and  indeed  munificent. 
Several  individuals  not  interested  in  the  success  of.  the  country  further  than 
their  general  attachment  to  the  cause  of  independence  and  that  of  their 
old  compatriots,  have  unostentatiously  presented  five  thousand  dollars, 


THB  NEUTBALITT  OF  THE  UNION.  591 

was  no  longer  able  to  pay  for  the  pens  with  which  it  wrote 
the  powerful  phrases  which  leveled  miserable  Mexico  to  the 
ground  with  their  lightning,  we  may  be  allowed  to  say 
that  assistance  from  the  United  States  was  the  conditio 
sine  qua  nan  of  the  assertion  of  independence,  still  more 
than  of  the  breaking  of  Mexican  supremacy.  That  Texas 
itself  did  not  consider  Mexico  absolutely  powerless,  spite  of 
the  disgraceful  defeat  at  San  Jacinto,  was  apparent  from  the 
fact  that  it  believed  that,  under  certain  circumstances,  an 
army  of  forty  thousand  men  might  be  needed.  But  even  if 
there  had  been  no  such  country  as  Mexico  in  the  world, 
could  one  hundred  thousand  men  of  entirely  different  nation- 
alities, and  of  even  entirely  different  races,  scattered  over  a 
territory  of  unmeasured  bounds,  and  not  in  a  condition  or 
not  willing  to  provide  their  government  with  ink  and  paper 
—  could  they  be  looked  upon  as  a  state  of  which  it  could  be 
assumed,  with  certainty,  that  it  could  perform  all  the  duties 
of  an  independent  state?  Both  the  president  and  congress 
were  well  enough  informed  of  these  circumstances,  for  Mor- 
fit's  report  was  appended  to  the  message  of  the  21st  of 
December,  1836. 

The  probability  of  the  permanent  success  of  the  revolu- 
tion of  Texas  and  the  endeavor  of  Jackson  to  preserve  to 
the  United  States,  so  far  as  that  was  still  possible,  the  appear- 
ance of  neutrality,  grew  in  the  same  proportion.  That  he 
was  concerned  only  to  save  appearances  is  proved  to  a 
demonstration,  by  the  attitude  which  he  maintained  to- 
wards Mexico  in  the  controversies  directly  pending  between 

while  numbers  have  contributed  one  thousand  each,  and  small  associations 
in  the  different  states  have  thrown  in  their  aid,  until  the  aggregate  baa 
swelled  to  a  large  amount  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  that  Texas  has 
carried  on  a  successful  war  thus  far,  with  so  little  embarrassment  to  her 
own  citizens  or  her  treasury ;  and  perhaps  it  is  the  first  instance  in  the  his- 
tory of  nations  where  a  state  has  sustained  itself  by  men  and  means  drawn 
wholly  (!)  from  a  distance."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  326. 


592  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

the  two  countries.  It  is  an  exaggeration  of  the  spirit  of 
party  to  say  that  he  sought  the  quarrel,  but  he  made  moun- 
tains out  of  mole-hills,  and  the  way  in  which  he  did  it  al- 
lows the  assumption  of  scarcely  any  motive  but  the  desire 
to  drive  the  two  states,  in  their  relations  to  each  other,  to 
sncli  extremities  that  if  there  were  need  of  it,  the  fate  of 
Texas  miglit  be  decided  directly  by  the  United  States  and 
by  force  of  arms. 

On  the  20th  of  July,  1836,  the  secretary  of  state  sent  the 
charge  d'affaires  in  Mexico,  Powhattan  Ellis  of  Mississippi, 
a  list  of  fifteen  grievances  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
against  Mexico,  for  which  he  was  to  demand  satisfaction. 
Although  Forsyth  'admitted  that  he  could  not  support  all 
the  complaints  by  proof,  he  instructed  Ellis  to  threaten  to 
take  his  departure  in  case  he  did  not  receive  a  satisfactory 
answer  within  three  weeks;  and  if  this  threat  had  no  effect, 
then  to  give  Mexico  a  respite  of  two  weeks  more  before  he 
asked  his  passports.  And  this  blunt  course  found  favor,  al- 
though none  of  the  grievances  contained  a  direct  complaint 
against  the  government.  A  large  part  should  not  have  been 
made  the  subject  of  diplomatic  negotiations  at  all,  but  should 
have  been  settled  by  the  Mexican  courts.*  Ellis,  a  fanatical 
slavocrat,  who  had  the  acquisition  of  Texas  at  heart,  acquit- 
ted himself  of  the  task  to  the  fullest  satisfaction  of  his 
masters.  As  early  as  the  20th  of  October  he  had  proceeded 
80  far  as  to  be  able  to  wait  on  Mexico  with  the  first  threat. 

'  When  Mexico  brought  up  a  grievance  in  Washington,  Forsjrth  repelled 
it  on  the  29th  of  January,  1836,  with  the  saying:  "That  the  couiis  of 
the  United  States  are  freely  open  to  all  persons  in  their  jurL«diction,  who 
may  consider  themselves  to  have  been  aggrieved  in  contravention  of  our  laws 
and  treaties."  When  Monasterio  now  asserted  the  same  principle  for  Mex- 
ico, Ellis  replied  on  the  15th  of  November:  "The  opinion  expressed  by 
the  Hon.  Mr.  Monasterio  which  hmits  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
having  certail^  claims  against  the  government,  to  resort  to  the  judicial 
tribunals  of  Mexico  for  indemnity,  is  whoUy  indefensible. "  Exec.  Doc, 
24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  Ill,  No.  139. 


ELLIS'S   THREATS.  593 

Moiiasterio  answered  the  next  day  in  an  entirely  worthy 
manner,  that  a  short  delay  in  answering  a  note  was  no  ground 
for  breaking  off  negotiations;  and  that  the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment would  give  its  answer  as  soon  as  it  was  placed  in  a 
condition  to  give  an  answer  by  means  of  the  documents  al- 
ready asked  for.'  But  Ellis  had  not  been  instructed  to  take 
reasons  into  consideration.  ^  On  the  4th  of  November  he 
obeyed  the  second  part  of  his  instructions,  and  gave  Mexico 
notice  of  the  last  two  weeks'  term  of  grace.  Monasterio 
answered  before  the  expiration  of  the  term.  Two  grievances 
had  been  already  settled,  satisfaction  was  promised  for  others, 
some  were  referred  to  the  courts,  judgment  was  suspended 
in  respect  to  some  because  a  decision  at  the  time  was  not 
possible,  and  some  were  rejected  as  unfounded.*    The  last 

'  Adams  passed  the  following  judgment  on  Jackson's  course  and  this 
correspondence:  "  It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the  conduct  of  our  govern- 
ment towards  Mexico,  with  the  gravity  which  the  great  principles  and  vital 
national  interests  involved  in  it  would  require.  There  are  large  and  seri- 
ous causes  of  complaint,  and  just  claims  of  indemnity  by  citizens  of  the 
United  States  against  the  government  abandoned  and  sacrificed  by  our 
own,  upon  the  most  frivolous  pretenses  of  offended  dignity,  and  repeated 
ruptures  of  negotiation  without  rhyme  or  reason.  From  the  day  of  the 
battle  of  San  Jacinto,  every  movement  of  the  administration  of  this  Union 
appears  to  have  been  made  for  the  express  purpose  of  breaking  off  nego- 
tiation and  precipitating  a  war,  or  by  frightening  Mexico  by  menaces  into 
cession  not  only  of  Texas,  but  the  whole  course  of  the  Rio  del  Norte,  and 
five  degrees  of  latitude  across  the  continent  to  the  South  Sea.  The  instruc- 
tion of  2l8t  July,  1836,  from  the  secretary  of  state  to  Mr.  Ellis,  almost 
immediately  after  the  battle,  was  evidently  premeditated  to  produce  a 
rupture,  and  was  but  too  faithfully  carried  into  execution.  His  [Ellis's] 
letter  of  20th  October,  1836,  to  Mr.  Monasterio,  was  the  premonitory 
symptom;  and  no  true-hearted  citizen  of  this  Union  can  read  it,  and  the 
answ:>r  to  it  on  the  next  day  by  Mr.  Monasterio,  without  blushing  for  his 
country."  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams  .  .  .  from  the  16tii  of  June  to 
the  7th  of  July,  1838,  p.  128. 

'  The  particulars  are  to  be  found  in  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War, 
p.  37  seq.  Jay  (p.  45)  thus  sums  up  his  judgment:  "  It  is  rare,  indeed, 
that  diplomatic  history  exhibits  a  series  of  natural  complaints  so  trivial  in 
38 


594  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

disposition  was  made  of  some  complaints  which  Ellis,  of  hie 
own  motion,  had  added  to  the  list  of  his  government.  But 
it  had  been  left  to  him  to  say  what  answer  he  would  con- 
sider satisfactory.  On  the  7th  of  December  he  asked  his 
passports,  and  the  question  of  the  Mexican  government 
what  moved  him  thereto,  he  answered  with  silence.' 

Immediately  after  Ellis's  return  the  president  sent  a  mes- 
sage to  congress,  in  which  he  expressed  the  conviction,  that 
the  United  States  would  be  completely  justified  before  the 
civilized  world  if  they  should  instantly  declare  war  against 
Mexico.  But  to  perform  an  act  of  supererogation  he  pro- 
posed a  last  effort  to  obtain  satisfaction  amicably.  In  order 
to  prevent  all  further  delay,  he  even  now  demanded  the  au- 
thorization of  the  making  of  reprisals  in  case  Mexico 
should  continue  headstrong.^    Instead  of  the  fifteen  griev- 

themselves,  urged  with  so  much  spleen  and  arrogunce  on  the  one  side,  or 
met  with  so  much  fairness  and  good  temper  on  the  other." 

'  Sen.  Doc.,  24th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  II,  No.  160,  p.  70.  Clay's  judg- 
ment was  not  too  severe,  but  altogether  too  mild,  when  he  said:  "He 
must  say  in  all  candor  and  truth,  that  the  departure  of  our  representative 
from  Mexico,  under  the  circumstances,  was  harsh,  abrupt,  and  unneces- 
sary."   Deb.  of  Congr  ,  XIII,  p.  198. 

•"The length  of  time  since  some  of  the  injuries  have  been  committed, 
the  repeated  and  unavaiUng  applications  for  redress,  the  wanton  character 
of  some  of  the  outrages  upon  the  property  and  persons  of  our  citizens, 
upon  the  officers  and  flag  of  the  United  States,  independent  of  recent  in- 
sults to  this  government  and  people  by  the  late  extraordinary  Mexican 
minister  (Gorostiza  had  published  a  pamphlet  in  which  he  branded  the 
course  of  the  United  States  in  the  Texan  question),  would  justify,  in  the 
eyes  of  all  nations,  immediate  war.  That  remedy,  however,  should  not 
be  used  by  just  and  generous  nations,  confiding  in  their  strength  for  inju- 
ries committed,  if  it  can  be  honorably  avoided;  and  it  has  occurred  to  me, 
that,  considering  the  present  embarrassed  condition  of  that  country,  we 
should  act  with  both  wisdom  and  moderation,  by  giving  to  Mexico  one 
more  opportunity  to  atone  for  the  past,  before  we  take  redress  into  our 
own  hands.  To  avoid  aU  misconception  on  the  part  of  Mexico,  as  well  as 
protect  our  own  national  character  from  reproach,  this  opportunity  should 
be  given  with  the  avowed  design  and  full  preparation  to  take  immediate 


MOKE   O&IErVANCES.  595 

ances  which  Ellis  had  been  obliged  to  present,  the  president 
now  presented  a  list  of  forty-six  grievances  to  congress. 
But  if  recourse  was  had  to  reprisals,  or  if  war  were  imme- 
diately begun,  it  conld  obviously  be  done  only  on  the  ground 
of  those  older  complaints,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 
reduced  to  thirteen  even  before  Ellis  had  made  his  demands. 
Jackson,  too,  knew  very  well  that  "just  and  magnanimooB 
nations  "  are  not  wont  to  have  recourse  to  blows  before  they 
have  demanded  satisfaction.  And  if  he  had  not  known  this, 
he  must  have  known  that  the  United  States  were  obligated 
thereto  tow^ards  Mexico  by  a  formal  treaty  stipulation.^  But 
more  yet !  Of  the  thirty-three  new  grievances  presented,  thirty- 
two  dated  from  the  time  of  the  friendly  and  commercial 
treaty  which  had  been  ratified  on  the  5th  of  April,  1832. 
And  even  if  they  had  not  been  barred  on  that  account,  it 
was  unquestionable  that,  for  this  very  reason,  all  abrupt  pro- 
cedure in  respect  to  them  was  prohibited.  But  may  it  not 
be  that  Jackson  also  really  believed  tliat  the  thirteen  com- 

satisf action,  if  it  should  not  be  obtained  on  a  repetition  of  the  demand 
for  it.  To  this  end  I  recommend  that  an  act  be  passed  authorizing  repri- 
sals, and  the  use  of  the  naval  force  of  the  United  States  by  the  executive 
against  Mexico,  to  enforce  them,  in  the  event  of  a  refusal  by  the  Mexican 
government  to  come  to  an  amicable  adjustment  of  the  matters  in  contro- 
versy between  us,  upon  another  demand  thereof  made  from  on  board  one 
of  our  vessels-of-war  on  the  coast  of  Mexico."  The  6th  of  February, 
1837.  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1053,  1054.  The  7th  of  February  is  most 
frequently  given  as  the  date  of  the  message,  and  in  a  report  of  the  senate 
committee  we  even  read  the  8th  of  February.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  308. 
'  "  If  [what  indeed  cannot  be  expected]  any  of  the  articles  contained  in 
the  present  treaty  shall  be  violated  or  infracted  in  any  manner  whatever, 
it  is  stipulated  that  neither  of  the  contracting  parties  will  order  or  author- 
ize any  acts  of  reprisal,  nor  declare  war  against  the  other,  on  complaints 
of  injuries  or  damages,  until  the  said  party  considering  itself  ofiFended, 
shall  first  have  presented  to  the  other  a  statement  of  such  ii^juries  and 
damages,  verified  by  competent  proofe,  and  demanded  justice  and  satis- 
faction, and  the  same  shall  have  been  refused  or  unreasonably  delayed." 
Treaty  of  April  5,  laSl  (or  April  5,  18^2),  Art  XXXIV,  clause  3;  Stat,  at 
L.,  VIII,  p.  426. 


596  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

plaints  from  the  original  list  in  the  instructions  of  the  20th 
of  July,  1836  —  mark  the  date  —  sufficed  to  justify  the  course 
of  procedure  recommended  by  him?  Ellis's  letter  of  com- 
plaint of  the  26th  of  September,  which  was  based  simply 
on  these  grievances,  laid  a  load  of  charges  at  Mexico's  door 
which  would  have  certainly  justified  the  most  decisive  meas- 
ures.' But  in  Jackson's  letter  to  Governor  Cannon,  of  Ten- 
nessee, already  cited,  which  had  been  written  on  the  5th  of 
August,  that  is,  more  than  two  weeks  later  than  the  instruc- 
tions to  Ellis  had  been  written,  the  president  declared  that  the 
United  States  would  know  how  to  get  satisfaction  if  Mexico 
should  become  guilty  of  such  an  offense;  but  that  thus  far  — 
whether  unfortunately,  qucBre\ — it  could  not  be  charged  with 
any.'^  The  assertions  of  the  ambassador  were,  therefore,  in 
the  opinion  of  tiie  president,  an  untruthful  exaggeration, —  he 
unconditionally  approved  the  course  of  the  ambassador  and 
thus  transformed  the  untruthful  exaggeration  into  a  con- 
scious falsehood  —  and  on  that  falsehood,  as  a  basis,  he  as- 
serted that  a  declaration  of  war  was  justifiable,  and  demanded 
from  congress  an  authorization  to  make  reprisals,  which 

'  "The  flag  of  the  United  States  has  been  repeatedly  insulted,  and  fired 
upon  by  the  public  armed  vessels  of  tliis  government;  her  consuls,  in  al- 
most every  port  of  the  republic,  have  been  maltreated  and  insulted  by  (he 
public  authorities;  her  citizens,  while  in  the  pursuit  of  a  lawful  trade, 
have  been  murdered  on  the  high  seas,  by  a  licentious  and  unrestrained 
soldiery.  Others  have  been  arrested  and  scourged  in  the  streets  by  the 
mUitary,  like  malefactors;  they  have  been  seized  and  imprisoned  under 
the  most  frivolous  pretexts;  their  property  has  been  condemned  and  con- 
fiscated in  violation  of  existing  treaties  and  the  acknowledged  law  of  na- 
tions, and  large  sums  of  money  have  been  exacted  of  them,  contrary  to 
all  law." 

*  '*  Should  Mexico  insult  our  national  flag,  invade  our  temtory,  or  inter- 
rapt  our  citizens  in  the  lawful  pursuits  wliich  are  guai-anteed  to  them  by 
treaty,  then  the  government  will  promptly  repel  the  insult,  and  take 
speedy  reparation  for  the  injury.  But  it  does  not  seem  that  oS'enses  of 
this  character  have  been  committed  by  Mexico." 


OFFEKS   OF   PEACE.  597 

would  have  placed  it  completely  in  his  power  to  bring  on  a 
war.  at  any  moment. 

Neither  in  the  senate  nor  in  the  house  of  representatives 
W{is  the  majority  prepared  to  give  the  president  carte  hlanohe 
for  his  waylayer-policy.  He  received  little  support  even 
from  those  who  would  perhaps  have  not  made  a  case  of  con- 
science out  of  it,  because  they  said  to  themselves  that  they 
would  only  spoil  their  game  with  the  people  if  tliey  en- 
deavored to  obtain  Texas  from  Mexico  by  such  brutal  violence. 
But  even  if  congress  did  not  grant  Jackson  the  wished  for 
autliority,  it  did  not  hesitate  to  approve  the  tendency  of  his 
policy.  The  committees  of  both  houses  agreed  with  the 
president  that  there  was  reason  enough  to  have  immediate 
recourse  to  force,^  and  both  houses  gave  notice,  by  means  of 
resolutions,  that  the  United  States  would  know  how  to  ob- 
tain their  rights,  in  case  Mexico  would  not  respond  to  a 
new  —  the  last — friendly  demand. 

The  committee  of  the  senate  had  thought  well  to  lay 
stress  on  the  fact  that  the  manner  in  which  this  last  friendly 
demand  was  to  be  made  should  be  left  entirely  to  the  presi- 
dent. This  meant  to  turn  the  "  magnanimous  "  attempt  at  a 
peaceable  settlement  into  an  unworthy  hypocritical  comedy. 
Powhattan  Ellis  was  the  man  to  whom  Jackson  confided  the 
"  twig  of  olive,"  and  the  senate  confirmed  his  nomination 
without  hesitation.  "Was  the  Mexican  government  or  the 
population  of  the  United  States  considered  so  weak-minded 
that  they  would  think  this  new  trampling  under  foot  of  the 

'  '*  If  the  government  of  the  United  States  were  disposed  to  exact  strict 
and  prompt  redress  from  Mexico,  your  committee  might,  with  justice,  rec- 
ommend an  immediate  resort  to  war,  or  reprisals."  Report  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Senate,  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  195. 

"  They  fully  concur  with  the  president,  that  ample  cause  exists  for  taking 
redress  into  our  own  hands,  and  believe  that  we  should  be  justified  in  the 
opinion  of  other  nations  for  taking  such  a  step."  Report  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  the  House,  ibib.,p.  309. 


598  Jackson's  administeatiok  —  annexation  of  texas. 

defenceless  weak  oue,  by  the  land-hungiy  strong  one,  as  an- 
offer  of  peace  honestly  meant?  Yet  it  was  well  known  in 
Washington  how  much  Mexico,  conscious  of  its  weakness, 
desired  to  avoid  a  breach,  and  hence  it  was  feared  that  these 
insults  might  not  be  sufficient.  The  report  of  the  committee 
of  the  house  from  which  the  resolutions  in  question  were 
adopted  by  the  house,  had  recommended  that  the  negotia- 
tions should  be  carried  on  by  an  ambassador  of  the  highest 
rank.^  But  the  executive  was  pleased  to  insult  Mexico  by 
the  nomination  of  Ellis,  and  then  sent  a  simple  courier  in 
his  place.^  Yan  Buren,  who  had,  in  the  meantime,  become 
president,  gave  Mexico  ten  days  to  answer.  The  Mexican 
government  answered  immediately  that  it  wished  to  do  jus- 
tice to  the  equitable  demands  of  the  United  States  in  every 
respect  and  as  fast  as  possible;  but  that  several  questions' 

'  "  It  is  their  opinion  that  a  diplomatic  functionary  of  the  highest  grade 
should  be  appointed  to  bear  this  last  appeal,  whose  rank  would  indicate 
at  once  the  importance  of  his  mission,  and  the  respect  in  which  the  gov- 
ernment to  which  he  is  accredited  is  held." 

*  "  And  who  was  this  minister  of  peace,  to  be  sent  with  the  last  droop- 
ing twig  of  oUve,  to  be  replanted  and  revivified  in  the  genial  soil  of  Mex- 
ico? It  was  no  other  than  Powhatan  (sic)  Ellis,  of  Mississippi,  famishing 
for  Texas,  and  just  returned  in  anger  and  resentment  from  an  abortive 
and  abruptly  tei-minated  mission  to  the  same  government,  in  the  inferior 
capacity  of  charge  d'aff'aires.  His  very  name  must  have  tasted  like  worm- 
wood to  the  Mexican  palate;  and  his  name  alone  seems  to  have  been  used 
for  the  single  pui-pose  of  giving  a  relish  to  these  last  resources  of  pacific 
and  conciliatory  councils.  His  appointment  seemed  at  least  to  harmonize 
with  the  recommendation  of  the  committee  of  foreign  aftairs,  for  it  was  to 
a  mission  of  the  highest  rank  in  our  diplomatic  dictionary.  But  though 
appointed,  he  was  not  permitted  to  proceed  upon  his  embassy.  He  was 
kept  at  home,  and  in  his  stead  was  dispatched  a  courier  of  the  depai*t- 
ment  of  state,  with  a  budget  of  grievances,  good  and  bad,  new  and  old, 
stulied  with  wrongs  as  full  as  Falstatf  's  buck  basket  with  foul  hnen,  to  bo 
turned  over  under  the  nose  of  the  Mexican  secretary  of  state,  with  an  al- 
lowance of  one  week  to  examine,  search  out,  and  answer  concerning  them 
all."  Speech  of  J.  Q.  Adams  .  .  .  from  the  16th  of  June  to  the  7th 
of  July,  1838,  pp.  127, 128. 


httnt's  pkoposal.  599 

demanded  a  close  examination,  which  would  require  consid- 
able  time.  As  the  four  months  from  the  end  of  July  to 
the  beginning  of  December  had  not  been  sufficient  for  that 
examination,  Yan  Buren  in  his  annual  message  of  the  4th 
of  December,  1837,  referred  the  whole  matter  to  congress, 
with  the  declaration  that  it  had  now  to  decide  what  further 
was  to  be  done.^ 

In  the  meantime  (4th  of  August,  1837)  the  Texan  chargS 
d'affaires  in  "Washington,  General  Hunt,  had  formally  sub- 
mitted the  proposal  for  annexation  to  Yan  Buren.  He  did 
not  spare  the  colors  in  his  picture  of  the  proffered  gift'  He, 
notwithstanding,  received  on  the  25th  of  August  an  answer 
declining  the  proposal,  because  the  United  States  did  not 
desire  to  give  up  their  neutrality,  and  because  the  inevitable 
consequence  of  annexation  would  be  a  war  with  Mexico.' 

At  the  first  blush,  we  should  conclude  from  this  that  the 
wish  to  acquire  Texas  was  not  able  to  influence  Yan  Bnren's 
policy  towards  Mexico.     But  Jackson  had  advised  against 

'  Statesm.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1182-1184.  "A  Mr.  Greenhow,  a  clerk  in 
one  of  the  public  offices,  was  dispatched  to  Mexico  with  a  large  mass  of 
documents,  containing  the  claims  of  our  citizens,  which  were  to  be  exam- 
ined and  reported  on  within  ten  days,  or  Mr.  Greenhow  was  to  return. 
Now  those  at  all  acquainted  with  the  manner  of  doing  business  in  the 
public  offices,  must  know  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  have  care- 
fully examined  them  in  so  many  weeks.  The  minister  of  foreign  affairs  of 
Mexico  proceeded  to  take  up  these  documents,  and  examine  them  one  by 
one,  admitting  the  justice  of  some  and  rejecting  others;  and  while  these 
matters  were  still  in  projrress,  suddenly  the  whole  subject  is  thrown  upon 
congress,  the  president  telling  that  body  he  had  no  further  negotiations  to 
make  with  Mexico."  Clay,  11th  of  April,  1838.  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIIl, 
pp.  660,  661. 

» " .  .  .  it  is  questioned  whether  even  the  possession  of  Cuba  would 
briug  with  it  those  facilities  of  controlling  and  keeping  in  check  the  pre- 
tension of  a  rival  power,  which  would  accrue  from  the  extension  of  the 
limits  of  the  United  States  to  the  line  of  the  Rio  del  Norte."  Doc.  of 
the  House  of  Repr.,  25th  Congr.,  Ist  Sess.,  No.  40,  p.  10. 

^  Doc.  of  the  House  of  Repr.,  25th  Congr.,  Ist  Sess.,  No.  40,  pp.  11-13. 


000  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  recognition  of  Texas  on  entirely  similar  grounds,  while 
he  endeavored  to  provoke  Mexico  in  every  way.  And  it 
may  be  asked,  did  Yan  Buren's  character  exclude  the  assump- 
tion that  his  reserve  was  determined  by  secret  motives  not  in 
the  best  of  harmony  with  the  pretended  reasons?  It  is,  in- 
deed, not  difficult  to  find  another  explanation  for  his  atti- 
tude than  the  uprightness  of  his  intentions.  It  must  have 
been  surprising  that  the  administration  was,  by  no  means,  in 
haste  to  let  the  public  know  how  virtuously  it  had  withstood 
the  temptation.  It  was  not  until  a  direct  inquiry  caused  by 
Adams,  of  the  house  of  representatives,  on  the  13th  of  Sep- 
tember,^ that  Hunt's  proposition  and  its  fate  became  more 
widely  known.  The  president's  discreetness  was  obviously  dic- 
tated by  consideration  for  those  who  desired  the  annexation, 
and  not  for  those  who,  for  one  reason  or  another,  did  not  want 
to  hear  anything  about  it.  But  the  former  were  obliged, 
whether  they  were  willing  or  not,  to  be  satisfied  with  that 
consideration,  for  they  knew  as  well  as  the  president  that 
there  could  be  no  thought  of  obtaining  now  the  constitu- 
tional majority  of  the  senate  for  a  ratification  of  a  treaty  of 
annexation.  It  was  still  simply  impossible  to  attain  the  end 
sought  in  a  direct  manner,  and  hence  it  was  exceedingly 
easy  to  be  virtuous.  If  Yan  Buren  wanted  to  serve  his 
southern  patrons  he  could  do  it  only  by  the  carrying  out  of  his 
general  programme,  that  is,  by  following  in  Jackson's  foot- 
steps. Any  president  who  judged  the  feeling  of  the  people 
only  half-way  rightly,  would  now  have  looked  upon  himself 
as  limited  to  the  keeping  of  the  quarrel  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico  alive,  and  that  Yan  Buren  honestly  tried 
to  do. 

Great  as  was  Mexico's  guilt  in  the  eyes  of  the  president, 
because  four  months  had  not  sufficed  to  it  for  the  settlement 
of  the  account  presented  by  the  United  States,  he  considered 
'Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  463. 


PETITIONS   AGAINST   ANNEXATION.  601 

liimself,  as  a  matter  of  course,  entitled  to  allow  himself  al- 
most as  long  a  time  before  he  communicated  any  answer 
whatever  to  Mexico's  proposition  to  endeavor  to  come  to  an 
understanding  in  another  way.  The  Mexican  congress  had 
resolved  to  propose  a  decision  by  arbitration  to  the  United 
States.  It  is  not  entirely  apparent  why  the  official  submis- 
sion of  this  proposition  was  delayed  until  the  22d  of  De- 
cember, 1837,  although  Mexico  had  again  had  a  representa- 
tive in  Washington  since  October.  It  is  said  that  the  latter 
had  believed  that  the  proposal  had  been  already  directly  made 
by  his  government;  but  Mexico's  undeniable  efforts  to  pro- 
long the  case  to  the  extent  of  its  power  does  not,  indeed,  en- 
tirely exclude  the  possibility  of  intentional  misunderstand- 
ing. A  simple  notice  that  it  was  received  was  the  only 
answer  to  this  proposal.  Forsyth  found  time,  on  three  occa- 
sions, to  draw  up  an  additional  list  of  new  demands  for  the 
Mexican  ambassador,  but  four  months  elapsed  before  he  an- 
swered the  proposal  of  the  22d  of  December.  On  the  21st 
of  April,  1838,  he  declared  that  the  president  too  ardently 
desired  to  avoid  the  most  extreme  measures  to  permit  him 
to  refuse  the  offer. 

But  had  the  tire  been  so  small  that  it  took  four  months  for 
the  president's  wishes  to  cook?  It,  indeed,  took  a  long  time 
to  burn  properly,  but  the  flames  rose  higher  every  hour, 
until  now  it  began  to  become  unbearably  hot  for  the  poor 
mongrel,  the  man  from  a  northern  state  with  southern  prin- 
ciples. From  both  sides,  from  the  north  as  well  as  from  the 
south,  greater  and  greater  loads  of  fuel  were  shoved  under 
the  caldron,  and  the  bellows  handled  with  ever  increasing 
energy.  The  piles  of  petitions  against  annexation  and  in 
favor  of  the  acceptance  of  the  Mexican  offer,  grew  with  alarm- 
ing rapidity  on  the  tables  of  the  two  houses  of  congress. 
Doubt  was  no  longer  possible:  that  offer  dared  not  be  re- 
jected.    This  the  south  also  perceived.     But  of  course  this 


602  Jackson's  admixistratiox  —  annexation  of  texas. 

did  not  mean  that  it  would  be,  therefore,  moved  to  resigna- 
tion. On  the  conti-arj.  If  the  indirect  way  were  obstructed 
to  it,  it  liad  for  weal  or  woe  to  advance  on  the  direct  path. 
It  never  for  a  moment  even  thought  of  the  possibility  of  any 
other  consequence. 

The  agitation  for  and  against  the  annexation  of  Texas 
had,  for  some  time,  assumed  a  new  form  in  part.  It  was 
no  longer  carried  on  only  by  individual  politicians  and  the 
more  extreme  party  press;  the  state  legislatures  had  taken 
tlie  field.  Even  the  year  previous,  the  legislature  of  Missis- 
sippi had  formally  declared  in  favor  of  annexation.  The 
report  of  the  committee  which  was  made  the  basis  of  the 
resolution,  not  only  expressly  advanced  the  slave-holding  in- 
terest as  an  argument  for  the  demand,  but,  moreover,  sang 
a  hymn  of  praise  to  slavery  in  a  key  higher  than  had  almost 
ever  before  been  heard  even  from  individuals.^     The  legisla- 

'  "  But  we  hasten  to  suggest  the  importance  of  the  annexation  of  Texas 
to  this  repubUc,  upon  grounds  somewhat  local  in  their  complexion,  but  of 
an  import  infinitely  grave  and  interesting  to  the  people  who  inhabit  the 
southern  portion  of  this  confederacy,  where  it  is  known  that  a  species  of 
domestic  slavery  is  tolerated  and  protected  by  law,  whose  existence  is  pro- 
hibited by  the  legal  regulations  of  other  states  of  this  confederacy;  which 
system  of  slavery  is  held  by  all  who  are  familiarly  acquainted  with  its 
pi-actical  efiects,  to  be  of  highly  beneficial  influence  to  the  country  within 
whose  limits  it  is  permitted  to  exist. 

"  The  committee  feel  authorized  to  say  that  this  system  is  cherished  by 
our  constituents  as  the  very  palladium  of  their  prosperity  and  happiness; 
and,  whatever  ignorant  fanatics  may  elsewhere  conjecture,  the  committee 
are  fully  assured,  upon  the  most  dihgent  observation  and  reflection  on  the 
subject,  that  the  south  does  not  possess'  within  her  hmits  a  blessing  with 
which  the  affections  of  her  people  are  so  closely  entwined  and  so  com- 
pletely enfibrod,  and  whose  value  is  more  highly  appreciated,  than  that 
whic>i  we  are  now  considering.  ...  It  may  not  be  improper  here  to 
remark  that,  dming  the  last  session  of  congress,  when  a  senator  from 
Mississippi  proposed  the  acknowledgment  of  Texan  independence,  it  was 
foynd,  with  a  few  exceptions,  the  members  of  that  body  were  ready  to 
take  ground  upon  it  as  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  itself.  .  .  .  We 
(sincerely  hope  there  is  enough  of  good  sense  and  genuine  love  of  country 


ADAMS   ON   ANNEXATION.  603 

tares  of  Alabama  and  Tennessee  now  followed  the  example 
of  Mississippi.  The  adoption  of  the  proposition  in  relation 
to  tlie  court  of  arbitration  was  for  congress  the  signal  to  pro- 
ceed. Three  days  later,  Preston,  of  South  Carolina,  moved 
in  the  senate  that  the  annexation  should  be  declared  expe- 
dient. On  the  14th  of  June,  Thompson,  of  South  Carolina, 
made  a  similar  motion  in  the  house  of  representatives.^  The 
tiood-gates  were  opened  and  the  waters  disembogued  them- 
selves in  a  broad  stream.  Adams  introduced  a  counter  reso- 
lution which  absolutely  denied  the  general  government  the 
right  to  annex  an  independent  state,  and  therefore  declared 
it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  people,  in  case  the  usurpation  was 
attempted,  to  "annul"  the  act  of  the  general  government.' 
And  when  he  succeeded  in  getting  the  floor,  he  monopolized 
the  morning  during  the  last  three  weeks  of  the  session  in 

among  our  fellow  coontrymen  of  the  northern  states  to  secure  us  final  jus- 
tice on  this  subject,  .  .  .  Your  committee  are  fully  persuaded  that 
this  protection  to  her  best  interest  will  be  afforded  by  the  annexation  of 
Texas;  an  equipoise  of  influence  in  the  halls  of  congress  will  be  secured, 
which  will  furnish  us  a  permanent  guaranty  of  protection."  Niles,  LXIV, 
pp.  173,  174. 

'  The  committee  on  foreign  affairs  was  to  be  instructed  "  to  report  a 
joint  resolution,  directing  the  president  to  take  the  proper  steps  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United  States,  as  soon  as  it  can  be  done  con- 
sistently with  the  treaty  stipulations  of  this  government."  Howard,  of 
Maryland,  chairman  of  the  committee,  remarked  on  this  clause:  "The 
contingency  contemplated  by  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina  was,  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas  by 
Mexico;  because,  until  that  happened,  no  annexation  could  be  made  con- 
sistently with  our  treaty  stipulations  with  Mexico."  Speech  of  J.  Q. 
Adams    .    .    .    from  the  16th  of  June  to  the  7th  of  July,  1838,  pp.  13, 15. 

•  "  Resolved,  That  the  power  of  annexing  the  people  of  any  independ- 
ent foreign  state  to  this  Union  is  a  power  not  delegated  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  to  their  congress,  or  to  any  department  of  their 
government,  but  reserved  by  the  people.  That  any  attempt  by  act  of 
congress  or  by  treaty  would  be  a  usurpation  of  power,  unlawful  and  void, 
and  which  it  would  be  right  and  the  duty  of  the  free  people  of  the  Union 
to  resist  and  annul.''    Ibid.,  p.  14. 


604  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

order  to  send  the  repeatedly  cited  speech  in  fragments  as  a 
hue  and  cry  through  the  country,  and  to  prevent  all  action 
for  the  present.  "Texas!  "  became  the  cry  of  alarm  which 
numberless  voices  echoed  through  the  north. '  This  much 
was  certain,  tliat  it  would  not  be  an  easy  matter  for  the  south 
to  attain  the  end  desired.  The  protests  of  the  legislatures 
of  eight  states  were  a  wall  which  could  not  be  easily  leaped 
ov3r.^ 

The  negotiations  between  Forsyth  and  the  Mexican  am- 
bassador, Martinez,  had  finally  come  to  a  conclusion  on  the 
10th  of  September,  1838.-  Mexico,  however,  neglected  the 
ratification  of  the  convention  at  the  right  time,  because,  as 
it  alleged,  it  had  learned  that  the  king  of  Prussia  had  re- 
fused to  accept  the  ofiice  of  arbitrator.'  Martinez,  however, 
was  empowered  to  carry  on  further  negotiations,  which  led 
to  the  conclusion  of  a  new  convention  on  the  11th  of  April, 
1839.*  A  year  elapsed  before  the  ratifications  were  ex- 
changed, and  before  Van  Buren's  proclamation  (April  8, 

'  Rhode  Island,  Vermont,  Ohio,  Massachusetts,  Maine,  Connecticut,  New 
York,  Pennsylvania.  Exec.  Doc,  25th  Congr.,  2d  Sess.,  Vol.  II,  No.  65;  Vol. 
VII,  No.  182;  Vol.  VIII,  No.  21 1 ;  Vol.  X,  No.  373,  etc.  Adams  says  in  the 
speech  frequently  mentioned,  p.  129 :  "It  [duplicity]  has  been  practiced  by 
the  long-protracted  suppression  of  all  debate  in  both  housos,  most  espe- 
cially in  the  house  of  representatives,  concerning'  our  relations  with  Mex- 
ico, and  above  all  with  regard  to  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  tliis  Union. 
The  systematic  smothering  of  all  petitions  against  this  measure,  extended 
to  the  resolutions  of  seven  state  legislatures,  could  have  no  other  intention 
than  to  disarm  the  resistance  against  it  which  was  manifesting  itself 
throughout  all  the  slaveless  states  of  the  Union.  It  was  distinctly  seen 
that  if  a  full,  free  and  unshackled  discussion  of  the  question  in  the  house 
of  representatives  should  be  permitted,  its  issue  would  show  "an  over- 
whelming majority  against  the  measm'e  at  this  time." 

» Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  8d  Sess.,  Vol.  VI,  No.  252,  pp.  27-32. 

'Jones,  the  American  consul  in  Mexico,  to  Forsj^th,  10th  of  Januaiy, 
1839.  Exec.  Doc.,  25th  Congr.,  3d  Sess.,  Vol.  VI,  No.  252,  pp.  21,  22. 
SLatesm.'s  Man.,  11,  p.  1227. 

*  Stat,  at  L.,  VIII,  pp.  526  et  seq. 


EXPIRATION   OF  THE   COMMISSION.  605 

1840)  could  follow.  The  commission,  which  consisted  of 
two  representatives  of  the  two  powers  concerned  and  of  the 
Prussian  ambassador,  Von  Eoenne,  as  arbitrator,^  began  their 
work  at  Washington  on  the  17th  of  August,  1840. 

One  miglit  suppose  that  even  the  most  suspicious  could 
now  breathe  freely.  But  soon  loud  complaints  were  heard, 
not  only  from  those  who  believed  they  had  claims  for  dam- 
ages against  Mexico,  or  who,  at  least,  alleged  that  they  had; 
but  even  some  who  were  personally  entirely  disinterested 
foresaw  no  good  end.  Even  on  the  24th  of  December 
Adams  confided  to  his  diary  the  suspicion  that  Yan  Buren, 
now,  as  well  as  before,  was  intent  upon  brooding  a  war- 
storm  out  of  the  wind-eggs  of  the  claims  for  damages.' 
Whether,  as  Adams  seems  to  assume,  the  commissioners 
can  be  personally  reproached  with  anything,  I  am  not  able 
to  say.  But  certainly  the  blame  was  not  theirs  alone  that 
a  considerable  number  of  complaints  remained  undecided 
when  their  commissions  expired  in  February,  1842.  The 
complainants  had  had  sixteen  months  from  the  closing  of 
the  convention  to  the  meeting  of  the  commission,  to  do  all 
that  was  necessary  for  the  assertion  of  their  demands,  and 

'  When  at  Easter,  1875,  I  was  studying  this  point  in  Berlin,  Dr.  Eapp 
endeavored  to  obtain  for  me  permission  to  look  at  the  papers  of  Roenne  in 
question,  but  was,  unfortunately,  refused  by  the  foreign  office. 

*  "  The  convention  itself  and  aU  the  proceedings  of  the  commissioners 
are  of  so  very  extraordinary  a  character  that  I  cannot  resist  a  very  strong 
suspicion  that  it  was  intended  by  the  Van  Buren  administration,  not  to 
obtain  indemnification  for  citizens  of  the  United  States  upon  Mexico,  but 
to  keep  open  the  sore  and  breed  a  war  with  Mexico,  as  machinery  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas  to  the  United  States.  There  is  not  a  step  in  the 
whole  series  of  transactions  which  has  a  tendency  to  the  satisfaction,  or 
even  to  the  adjustment,  of  the  claims.  The  convention  itself  is  a  mockery, 
the  commission  under  it  an  imposture."  Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  43. 
He  writes  again  on  the  15th  of  July,  1842:  "  The  convention  for  the  set- 
tlement of  the  claims  was  so  wretchedly  contrived  that  its  real  object  must 
have  been  to  multiply  and  aggravate  the  causes  of  war  between  the  two 
countries."    Ibid.,  p.  209. 


GOG   JACKSOK's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

tliey  had  known  that  by  virtue  of  the  convention  the  com- 
mission had  onlj  eighteen  months  to  meet  in  consnltation. 
l^otwithstanding  this,  claims  to  tlie  amount  of  $3,336,837 
remained  unexamined,  because  they  had  been  handed  in  too 
late;  but  the  commission  had  decided  upon  all  complaints 
brought  before  it  with  the  necessary  proofs,  by  the  2Gth  of 
May,  1841,  that  is,  by  the  expiration  of  the  first  nine  months. 
What  reason  the  arbitrator  should  have  had  to  keep  "  the 
wound  open,"  it  is  hard  to  perceive.  But  even  he  left  claims 
referred  to  him  to  pass  upon  to  the  amount  of  $928,627  un- 
settled, because  they  had  come  to  him  so  late  that  the  requi- 
site examination  had  becpme  impossible.  The  aggregate 
amount  of  the  claims  was  $11,850,578,  on  which  final  judg- 
ment had  been  passed  to  the  extent  of  $7,595,114;  and  of 
the  latter, claims  to  the  extent  of  $2,026,236  had  been  recog- 
nized as  justified  either  by  the  commissioners  or  the  arbi- 
trator. The  assumption  that  the  complaints  not  handed  in 
at  the  right  time  were  of  a  still  more  dubious  nature  than 
those  that  came  to  a  decision,  is  not  an  unjust  one.^  If,  as 
Jackson  and  congress  had  asserted,  a  declaration  of  war 
would  have  been  justified  even  five  years  before,  plainly  the 
justification  could,  to  say  the  least,  not  be  found  in  the  size 
of  the  sum  which  the  United  States  could  equitably  claim. 
About  two  months  before  the  work  of  the  commission  was 
finished,  the  rumor  that  Tyler  had  again  taken  up  the  an 
nexation  project  began  to  spread.'^    It  soon  became  manifest 

'  Pendleton,  of  Virginia,  mentions  in  a  speech  of  the  22cl  of  February, 
1847,  a  demand  of  $1,690  for  fifty-six  dozen  bottles  of  porter,  the  real  value 
of  which  he  estimates  at,  at  most,  $200.  Interest  for  less  than  six  years,  to 
the  amount  of  $6,570  was  asked,  so  that  Mexico  had  in  all  to  pay  $8,260, 
or  almost  $11  for  each  bottle.  Pendleton  adds:  "  I  do  not  say  that  a'l 
these  accounts  are  of  that  sort;  but  this  I  will  say,  that  many  of  them  are 
more  unreasonable."    Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  p.  73. 

'  "This  afternoon,  Mr.  Leavitt  called  on  me,  with  Mr.  Gates,  member 
of  the  house  from  the  state  of  New  York.    They  are  alarmed  at  numeroas 


CONDITION   OF  TEXAS.  607 

that  the  fears  entertained  still  remained  far  behind  the  plots 
which  were  hatched  in  the  White  House,  in  Texas  and  in  a 
part  of  the  slave  states.  Texas  had  finally  gotten  into  a  con- 
dition which  imperatively  called  for  a  decision.  As  early  as 
Jnne,  1839,  Texan  paper  was  almost  worthless.^  According 
to  a  report  of  the  minister  of  finance  of  the  loth  of  October, 
1840,  a  total  of  $903,052  had  gone  into  the  treasury  from 
the  founding  of  the  state  until  the  30tliof  September,  1840, 
while  the  debt  had  grown  to  be  $4,822,318.^  The  Aiistin 
City  Gazette  wrote,  on  the  2l8t  of  October,  1840,  that  Texas 
had  reached  the  lowest  round  of  the  ladder.'  Tliat  was  a 
vain  hope;  it  went  a  great  deal  deeper  down.     In  the  spring 

indications  of  a  design  to  revive  the  project  of  annexing  Texas  to  the  United 
States.  They  said  there  was  a  long  article  in  the  *  New  York  Courier  and 
Enquirer,'  recommending  it  by  arguments  addressed  first  to  the  abolition- 
ists and  then  to  others;  and  they  asked  if  anjiJiing  could  now  be  done  to 
counteract  this  movement.  I  know  of  nothing  but  to  make  it  as  soon  and 
as  extensively  known  as  possible.  There  is  apparently  in  this  movement  a 
concert  of  long  standing  between  Andrew  Jackson,  Samuel  Houston,  re- 
cently elected  for  the  second  time  president  of  Texas,  and  Santa  Anna, 
now  reinstated  as  president  of  the  Mexican  Confederation.  .  .  .  The 
developments  of  this  project  are  not  yet  sufficiently  clear  and  explicit  to 
know  how  to  meet  and  counteract  it."  December  18,  1841.  Mem.  of  J. 
Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  41. 

'  "  Our  promissory  notes  are  now  so  much  depreciated  that  they  are 
almost  worthless.  Every  thing  in  the  country  is  immensely  high,  and  still 
the  government  goes  on  recklessly  throwing  out  its  pictured  bits  of  paper, 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  every  one  they  put  out  depreciates  the  valne  of 
the  rest.  Were  the  expenditures  necessary  and  beneficial,  so  much  objec- 
tion could  not  be  made;  but  such  is  by  no  means  the  case."  "  Morning 
Star,"  June  24,  1839.    Gouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas,  p.  97. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  104,  105.  Gouge  considers  this  sum  still  too  low,  and  says 
that  the  debt  must  have  amounted  to  about  $5,500,000. 

»  "Texas  promissory  notes  are  worth  about  fifteen  cents  upon  the  dollar 
—  there  is  little  prospect  of  a  loan  —  the  taxes  are  not  promptly  paid;  and 
if  they  were,  would  only  return  to  the  treasury,  at  par,  that  which  way 
issued  for  less  than  one-sixth  of  the  amount.    .     .    .    We  are  at  the  low 
est  round  of  the  ladder."    Ibid.,  p.  102. 


608    JACKSOIl's  ADMINISTRATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXA8i 

of  1841,  all  paper  rose  largely  because  General  James  Ham- 
ilton had  succeeded  in  effecting  a  loan  from  the  house  of 
Lafitte,  of  Paris,  But  the  joy  was  short-lived.  Exceedingly 
petty  wrangling  with  the  French  charge  d'affaires  in  Texas 
finally  prevented  the  loan,^  and  now  the  fall  was  very  rapid. 
During  the  same  3'ear,  even  the  government  dared  no  longei- 
to  give  full  information  concerning  the  state  of  the  debt,  and 
a  formal  declaration  of  bankruptcy  was  the  anchor  to  which 
the  eyes  of  the  patriots  turned.^  On  the  19th  of  January, 
1842,  the  so-called  Exchequer  Bill,  which  provided  that  the 
old  treasury  notes  should  be  taken  by  the  government  only 
for  taxes  and  duties  in  arrears,  was  passed.  The  consequence 
was  that  they  sank  down  to  two  per  cent.,  and  finally  shared 
the  fate  of  the  French  assignats.  And  the  same  fate  seemed 
to  threaten  the  new  exchequer  bills.  With  a  crying  viola- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  their  emission,  it  was  determined 
on  the  23d  of  July,  1842,  that  they  should  no  longer  be  taken 
by  the  government  treasury  at  their  nominal  value,  but  only 
at  their  market  value;  and  at  the  end  of  the  year,  the  lattei 
amounted  to  twenty-five  cents  on  the  dollar.^ 

A  few  days  before  Texas  had  declared  its  bankruptcy  by 
the  Exchequer  Bill,  General  Hamilton, returningfrom  Eng- 
land, wrote  on  board  the  steamer  Forth  a  letter  to  Santa 
Anna,  in  which  he  offered  himself  to  buy  the  recognition  of 

'  Gouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas,  pp.  109-111. 

*  In  the  report  of  the  minister  of  finance  we  read :  "  To  repudiate  the 
public  debt  altogether,  as  suggested  by  many,  would  justly  stigmatize  us 
as  a  people  in  the  eyes  of  all  enHghtened  foreign  nations.  To  meet  all 
engagements  fully  and  promptly,  is  entirely  out  of  our  power.  Necessity 
compels,  therefore,  in  some  measure,  to  do  violence  to  our  sense  of  justice, 
as  well  as  to  the  rights  of  our  creditors,  in  adopting  a  compromise  which 
shall  guard  their  rights,  as  far  as  we  can  consistently  with  the  successful 
administration  of  the  government.''  Grouge,  The  Fiscal  History  of  Texas, 
p.  113. 

•Ibid.,  pp.  116-118. 


Hamilton's  offee.  609 

the  independence  of  Texas  from  Mexico.  The  Texan  gov- 
ernment had,  according  to  his  own  statement,  sent  him  to 
Europe  to  effect  the  recognition  of  the  European  powers 
and  to  "  transact  certain  fiscal  operations."  Whether  he  was 
empowered  or  commissioned  to  make  this  offer  lie  does  not 
say.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  first  words,  he  presents  him- 
self to  the  president  of  Mexico  as  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States.  lie  offers  for  a  treaty  of  peace  and  a  boundary 
treaty  $5,000,000,  and  besides  "$200,000  which  will  be 
secretly  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  agents  of  the  Mexican 
government."  *  Santa  Anna,  who,  during  his  imprisonment, 
had  declared  the  relinquishment  of  Texas  to  be  Mexico^s 
best  policy,  rejected  this  proposition  as  insulting  shameless- 
ness.  Hamilton,  in  a  long  letter  of  the  21st  of  March,  1842,' 
gave  him  ample  proof  that  he  had  picked  out  the  wrong 
man  when  he  believed  he  might  permit  himself  personal 
courtesies.  The  ex-governor  of  South  Carolina  prided  him- 
self that  he  could  make  use  of  tlie  starry  banner  as  a  warm 
and  stately  cloak  while  he  was  managing  the  affairs  of  Texas.' 
He  did  not  blush  to  reproach  Santa  Anna  severely  because 
he  had  made  his  (Hamilton's)  letter  public,  although  it  was  a 
"confidential "  one;  and  he  was  bold-fronted  enough  to  assert 
that  the  $200,000  were  intended  only  to  cover  the  costs 
growing  out  of  the  marking  off  of  the  limits,  etc. 

These  two  great  gentlemen  had  about  as  much  reason  to 
hold  themselves  up  to  each  other  as  mirrors  of  lofty  morality 
as  their  respective  states  had  occasion  to  boast  mutually  of 
their  dreadful  power.  In  this  sphere  Santa  Anna  measured 
himself  vnth  Houston,  but  was  as  far  from  being  able  to 
cope  with  his  grandiloquence  as  with  Hamilton's  churlish- 
ness. "Wliile  he  only  pledged  himself  to  conquer  the  former 
province  again,  Houston  swore  that  the  latter  would  carry  its 

•  NUes,  LXII,  p.  50.        » Ibid.,  pp.  67,  68.        'See  NUes,  LXVI,  p.  S26 
39 


610  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

banners  into  the  heart  of  Mexico.^  Tliere  was,  indeed, 
something  dreadfully  serious  in  this  threat,  vastly  as  the 
material  power  of  Mexico  was  superior  to  that  of  Texas. 
The  rest  of  the  world  might  not  have  very  great  respect  for 
Arista's  expedition  which  was  to  verify  Santa  Anna's  saying, 
but  it  would  have  been  a  great  danger  to  the  Texans  if  they 
could  not  rightly  claim  that  they  were  able  to  raise  armies 
out  of  the  dust.  The  cry  of  alarm  in  the  slave  states  and  in 
the  capital  of  the  Union  resounded  as  loud  and  piercing  at 
the  approach  of  the  Mexican  cavalry  as  in  the  solitary  farms 
of  Texas.'^ 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  those  slave  states  which 
contributed  most  towards  annexation  were  impelled  thereto 
partly  by  directly  opposing  individual  interests.  As  early 
as  1829,  in  the  Yirginia  convention,  Upshur  called  attention 
to  the  pleasing  rise  which  was  to  be  expected  in  the  price 

'  "  With  these  principles  we  will  march  across  the  Rio  Grande;  and,  sir, 
believe  me,  ere  the  banner  of  Mexico  shall  triumphantly  float  on  the 
banks  of  the  Sabine,  the  Texan  standard  of  the  Lone  Star,  borne  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  shall  display  its  bright  folds  in  hberty's  triumph  on  the 
Isthmus  of  Darien."    Houston  to  Santa  Anna,  Niles,  LXII,  p.  98. 

*  In  an  appeal  of  Texan  agents  ot  the  16th  of  March,  1842,  to  the 
citizens  of  New  Orleans  and  of  the  Mississippi  valley,  we  read:  "The 
people  of  Texas  look  with  much  of  hope  to  the  spirit  of  chivalry  and  liber- 
ality in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi  for  assistance  in  their  present  exi- 
gency.'' At  the  same  time  the  assurance  is  given:  "They  are  fully 
resolved  not  again  to  lay  down  their  arms  until  they  extort  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  their  independence  in  the  heart  of  the  Mexican  capital." 
Ibid.,  pp.  97,  98.  In  a  letter  of  the  8th  of  May,  1843,  from  Galveston, 
we  read:  "  We  look  upon  New  Orleans  almost  as  our  own:  it  is  there  we 
have  received  men,  money  and  provisions,  and,  above  all,  where  the  deepest 
sympathy  has  been  felt  and  exercised  in  our  behalf.  It  is  to  that  spot  we 
look  as  a  last  hope,  should  all  others  fail  us."  Niles,  LXIV,  p.  231.  And 
the  "  New  Orleans  Bee,"  of  the  22d  of  April,  1843,  says:  "  Many  of  the 
people  of  these  states  have  impoverished  themselves  in  raising  supplies  for 
Texas,  and  not  a  week  has  elapsed  since  her  navy  sailed  fi-om  our  port., 
freighted  with  the  prayers  of  a  whole  people,  and  manned  by  the  brawny 
and  toil-hardened  seamen  of  the  states."    Niles,  LXII,  p.  175. 


DIVEKSITY   OF   INTEEESTS.  611 

of  slaves  if  a  new  and  immense  market  were  opened  in 
Texas,  and  Gliolson,  in  1832,  estimated  this  rise,  in  the  legis- 
lature, at  50  per  cent.*  In  Louisiana,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  were  murmorings  over  the  exorbitant  slave  prices 
which  the  border  states  might  extort  with  their  monopoly  of 
slave-raising.  Here  the  as^itation  for  the  abolition  of  the 
prohibition  of  slave  importation  had  its  origin.  Only  on 
condition  that  Texas,  by  incorporation  into  the  Union,  should 
be  deprived  of  the  possibility  of  using  the  cheap  slave 
market  of  Cuba,  would  this  question  be  allowed  to  rest.'  In 
the  course  of  time,  this  opposition  of  interests  between  the 
slave-producing  and  slave-consuming  states,  might  obtain 
considerable  importance.  It  could  not,  however,  as  yet,  as- 
sert itself,  in  view  of  the  incomparably  greater  opposition 

'  "  The  price  of  slaves  fell  twenty- five  i)er  cent,  within  two  hours  after 
the  news  was  received  of  the  non-importation  act  which  was  passed  by  the 
legislature  of  Louisiana.  Yet  he  believed  the  acquisition  of  Texas  would 
raise  their  price  fifty  per  cent,  at  least." 

* "  If  such  have  been  the  results  produced  by  the  injudicious  efforts 
by  the  English  philanthropists,  we  may  well  doubt  the  policy  of  the  law 
of  congress  which  has  prohibited  the  importation  of  slaves  from  Africa,  a 
policy  that,  by  all  we  can  learn,  has  no  other  effect  than  to  cause  the  plan- 
ter of  Louisiana  to  pay  to  the  Virginia  slaveholder  one  thousand  dollars  it' 
a  negro  which  now  in  Cuba,  and  by-and-by  in  Texas,  may  be  bought  for  h\J'' 
the  money.  It  is  known  to  those  acquainted  with  the  character  of  tiLe 
African,  that  he  is  more  patient  and  less  unruly  than  the  Virginia  or  Mary- 
land negro;  his  very  ignorance  of  many  things  makes  him  less  dangerous 
in  a  community  like  ours,  and  his  constitution  is  better  suited  to  our  cli- 
mate. In  transporting  him  from  his  own  country,  his  position  too  in  civ- 
ilization is  bettered,  not  worsted. 

"The  more  we  examine  and  reflect  on  the  poli<^  the  Texans  are  likely 
to  pursue  in  this  matter,  openly  or  covertly,  the  more  we  are  convinced  that 
Texas  should  be  annexed  to  the  Union,  or  else  congress  should  repeal  the 
law  prohibiting  the  importation  of  slaves  from  Africa.  Otherwise  the  cul- 
ture of  sugar  and  cotton  in  Louisiana  will  suffer  {neatly  by  the  cheaper 
labor  which  the  planters  of  Cuba  can  and  will  eroyloy."  "The  New  Or- 
leans Courier,"  May  21,  1839.  Jay,  Action  of  the  Federal  government  in 
behalf  of  slavery;  Misc.  Writs.,  p.  298. 


612   JACKSON'S  ADMINI8TKATION ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

between  slavery  and  freedom.  Bnt  if  the  representatives  of 
opposing  interests  looked  on  one  another  with  jealous 
eyes,  they  were  not,  on  this  account,  any  the  less  firmly 
united  against  the  common  enemy.  The  question  of  annex- 
ation was  urged  in  congress  from  the  standpoint  of  this  gen- 
eral opposition,  and  in  January,  1842,  Wise  —  at  once  the 
mouth-piece  and  prompter  of  the  administration  —  gave  out 
in  the  house  that,  from  this  point  of  view,  annexation  was 
not  only  desirable  but  even  necessary.^ 

Three  months  later,  Wise  laid  bare  the  connection  which 
Arista's  march  had  with  the  resumption  of,  and  the  impa- 
tient endeavors  to  carry  out,  the  plan  of  annexation.  Tyler 
had  nominated  Waddy  Thompson,  of  South  Carolina,  who, 
on  the  14th  of  June,  1838,  had  made  the  motion  in  relation 
to  the  annexation  already  mentioned,  ambassador  to  Mexico. 
Linn,  of  New  York,  moved,  in  the  house,  to  strike  out  the 
appropriation  for  this  post.  This  drew  in  April,  1842,  a  fiery 
speech  from  Wise,  in  which  he  babbled  out  the  whole  pro- 
gramme of  the  administration.  He  declared  that  not  only 
the  unsettled  claims  for  damages  of  American  citizens  should 
be  exacted  from  Mexico,  but  Mexico  should  be  peremptorily 
prohibited  to  raise  a  hand  against  Texas.''    Texas  was  too 

'  "  True,  if  Iowa  be  admitted  on  the  one  side,  Florida  will  be  added  on  the 
other.  But  there  the  equation  must  stop.  Let  one  more  northern  state 
be  admitted  and  the  equilibrium  is  gone — gone  forever.  The  balance 
of  interests  is  gone  —  the  safeguard  of  American  property — of  the  Amer- 
ican constitution  —  of  the  American  Union,  vanished  into  thin  au:.  This 
tbust  be  the  inevitable  result,  unless,  by  a  treaty  with  Mexico,  the 
south  can  add  more  weight  to  her  end  of  the  lever!  Let  the  south  stop  at 
the  Sabine,  while  the  north  may  spread  unchecked  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  the  southern  scale  must  kick  the  beam."  Niles,  LXIV, 
o.  174. 

'  "  Sir,  it  is  not  only  the  duty  of  the  government  to  demand  the  liquida- 
tion of  our  claims  and  the  liberation  of  our  citizens,  but  to  go  further,  and 
demand  the  non-invasion  of  Texas.  Shall  we  sit  still  here  while  the  stand- 
ard of  insurrection  is  raised  on  our  borders,  and  let  a  horde  of  slaves  and 
ludiaxis  and  Mexicans  roll  up  the  boundaiy  line  of  Arkansas  and  Louisiana  ? 


wise's  speech.  613 

weak  to  defend  itself;  but  as  as  soon  as  the  crj,  On  to  llllexicol 
resounded — as  soon  as  the  boundless  wealth  of  Mexico's 
mines  and  Mexico's  churches  were  shown  from  afar  as  a 
prize,  the  population  of  the  Mississippi  valley  would  rise  up 
in  crowds  and  not  rest  until  the  banner  of  Texas  waved 
over  the  walls  of  the  city  of  Montezuma,  nor  until  the  way 
had  been  cleared  for  slavery  as  far  as  the  Pacific  ocean.' 

No.  It  is  our  duty  to  say  at  once  to  Mexico,  K  you  strike  Texas,  you  strike 
OS;  and  if  England,  standing  by,  should  dare  to  intermeddle,  and  ask.  Do 
you  take  part  with 'Texas?  his  prompt  answer  should  be,  Yes,  and 
against  you.  Such,  he  would  let  gentlemen  know,  was  the  spirit  of  the 
whole  people  of  the  great  vaUey  of  the  west." 

'  "  Texas  had  but  a  sparse  population,  and  neither  men  nor  money  of  her 
own  to  raise  and  equip  an  army  for  her  own  defense;  but  let  her  once  raise 
the  flag  of  foreign  conquest  —  let  her  once  proclaim  a  crusade  against  the 
rich  states  to  the  south  of  her,  and  in  a  moment  volunteers  would  flock  to 
her  standard  in  crowds  from  all  the  states  in  the  great  valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi —  men  of  enterprise  and  hardy  valor  before  whom  no  Mexican 
troops  could  stand  an  hour.  They  would  leave  their  own  towns,  arm  them- 
selves and  travel  at  their  own  cost,  and  would  come  up  in  thousands  to 
plant  the  lone  star  of  the  Texan  banner  on  the  Mexican  capital.  They 
would  drive  Santa  Anna  to  the  south,  and  the  boundless  wealth  of  captured 
towns  and  rifled  churches,  and  a  lazy,  vicious  and  luxurious  priesthood 
would  soon  enable  Texas  to  pay  her  soldiers  and  redeem  her  state  debt, 
and  push  her  victorious  arms  to  the  very  shores  of  the  Pacific.  And  would 
not  all  this  extend  slavery?  Yes,  the  result  would  be  that,  before  another 
quarter  of  a  century,  the  extension  of  slavery  would  not  stop  short  of  the 
Western  ocean.  To  talk  of  restraining  the  people  of  the  great  valley  from 
emigrating  to  join  her  armies,  was  all  in  vain.  .  .  .  But  once  set  be- 
fore them  the  conquest  of  the  rich  Mexican  provinces,  and  you  might  as 
well  attempt  to  stop  the  wind.  Let  the  work  once  begin,  and  he  did  not 
know  tliat  this  house  would  hold  him  [Wise]  very  long.  Give  me  five 
millions  of  dollars  and  I  would  undertake  to  do  it  myself.  Although  1 
don't  know  how  to  set  a  single  squadron  in  the  field,  I  could  find  men  to 
do  it;  and,  with  five  millions  of  dollars  to  begin  with,  I  would  undertake 
to  pay  every  American  claimant  the  full  amount  of  his  demand  with  inter- 
est, yea,  four-fold.  I  would  place  Califomia  where  all  the  powers  of  Great 
Britain  would  never  be  able  to  reach  it.  Slavery  should  pour  itself  abroad 
without  restraint,  and  find  no  hmit  but  the  Southern  ocean,  llie  Co- 
manches  should  no  longer  hold  the  richest  mines  of  Mexico;  but  every 
golden  image  which  had  received  tJje  prof anation  of  a  false  worship  r  hould 


614  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  texas. 

Thompson's  mission  was  intended  to  preserve  peace,  but  all 
the  better  if  it  led  to  war.  The  slavocracy  scraped  the  ban- 
ner of  Cortez  out  of  the  grave,  and  "  gold,  robbery ! "  was  the 
watchword  with  which  it  called  the  entire  rabble  of  the  Union 
to  flock  about  it. 

This  speech  cast  a  glaring  light  on  one  place  in  Upshur's 
report  of  the  4:th  of  December,  1841.  Alluding  to  the  grow- 
ing number  of  settlers  from  the  United  States  in  Upper  Cal- 
ifornia, the  secretary  of  the  navy  demanded  a  considerable 
increase  of  the  ships  stationed  in  the  Pacific  ocean ;  two  small 
vessels  were  to  be  entirely  occupied  with  the  close  examina- 
tion of  the  Gulf  of  California.^  ^hen  one  recalled  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  Texas  question  had  arisen,  the  suspicion 
readily  suggested  itself  that  this  passage  in  Upshur's  report, 
and  Wise's  speech,  might  be  eggs  hatched  in  the  same  nest.' 

soon  be  melted  down,  not  into  Spanish  milled  dollars,  indeed,  but  into  g-ood 
American  eagles.  Yes,  there  should  more  hard  money  flow  into  the 
United  States  than  any  exchequer  or  subtreasury  could  ever  circulate,  i 
•s'ould  cause  as  much  gold  to  cross  the  Rio  del  Noi-te  as  the  mules  of  Mexico 
could  carry;  aye,  and  make  a  better  use  of  it  than  any  lazy,  bigoted  priest- 
hood under  heaven.  I  am  not  quarrelUng  with  the  particular  religion  of 
these  priests;  but  I  say,  that  any  priesthood  that  has  accumulated  and  se- 
questered such  immense  stores  of  wealth,  ought  to  disgorge;  and  it  is  a 
benefit  to  mankind  to  scatter  their  wealth  abroad  where  it  can  do  good. 
Texas  had  proclaimed  a  blockade  against  all  the  coast  of  Mexico;  and 
though  she  had  no  fleet  to  enforce  it,  she  would  be  able  to  make  it  good 
by  hewing  her  way  to  the  Mexican  capital.  Nor  could  aU  the  vaunted 
power  of  England  stop  the  chivalry  of  the  west  till  they  had  planted  the 
Texan  star  on  the  walls  of  the  city  of  Montezuma.  Nothing  could  keep 
these  booted  loafers  from  rushing  on  till  they  kicked  the  Spanish  priests  out 
of  the  temples  they  profaned.  War  was  a  curse;  but  it  had  its  blessings 
too.  He  would  vote  for  this  mission  as  the  means  of  preserving  peace; 
but,  if  it  must  lead  to  war,  he  would  vote  it  the  more  willingly." 

•Niles,  LXl,p.  263. 

*  The  following  memorandum  of  Adams  on  a  conversation  with  Webster 
m  the  25th  of  March,  1843,  is  interesting,  especially  on  account  of  the 
mspioion  that,  in  possible  contingencies,  the  administration  might  obtain  a 
support  in  France  against  England:  *'  I  considered  all  the  questions  a^')ut 
the  right  of  search,  the  bill  io'^  the  occupation  of  the  Oregon  Territorv, 


COMMODOBE  JOISES.  615 

And  before  the  end  of  the  year  an  event  came  to  pass  which 
was  not  precisely  calculated  to  dissipate  this  suspicion. 

Commodore  Jones,  who  held  the  chief  command  over  the 
ships  stationed  in  the  Pacific  ocean,  informed  the  secretary  of 
the  navy  on  the  13th  of  September,'  that  he  had,  on  his  own 
responsibility,  left  the  harbor  of  Callao  and  the  coast  of 
Peru  on  the  7th  to  hasten,  under  full  sail,  towards  Mexico 
and  California.^  The  consul  of  the  United  States  at  Mazat- 
lan  had  sent  him  the  Mexican  newspaper  El  Cosmopolitan 
in  which  a  protest  of  the  Mexican  secretary  of  state,  Boca- 
negra,  addressed  to  Webster,  against  the  violations  of  neu- 
trality which  citizens  of  the  United  States  had  become  guilty 
of  towards  Texas,  and  a  circular  relating  thereto  to  the  diplo- 
matic representatives  in  Mexico,  were  printed.  These  two 
diplomatic  documents  made  it  seem  "  quite  probable  " '  to 
the  commodore  that  the  United  States  and  Mexico  were 
engaged  in  war  with  each  other  at  the  time,  because  he  had 

Captain  Jones's  movement  on  California,  and  all  the  movements  for  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  were  parts  of  one  great  system,  looking  to  a  war  for 
conquest  and  plunder  from  Mexico,  and  a  war  with  England  and  aUiance 
with  France.  And  1  referred  to  Wise's  speech  of  the  14th  of  April  last, 
avowing  this  project  of  a  war  with  Mexico  for  conquest  and  plunder,  to- 
gether with  a  war  with  Great  Britain.  I  said  Wise  had  babbled  the  whole 
project  last  April,  and  it  could  not  pass  without  notice  that  that  same  Heniy 
A.  Wise  had,  in  the  last  hours  of  the  late  session  of  congress,  been  three 
times  nominated  to  the  senate  as  minister  to  France.  It  was  also  not  less 
remarkable  that  Wise  had  been  the  confidential  correspondent  of  Commo- 
dore Jones,  and  had  stated  on  the  floor  of  the  house  that  he  had  received 
from  Jones  himself  a  letter  in  justification  of  his  occupation  of  Monterey. " 
Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  346. 

'  The  records  concerning  this  matter  are  to  be  found  in  Exec.  Doc.,  27th 
Cougr.,  3d  Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No,  166.  One  part  of  them  is  printed  in  Niles, 
LXIV,  pp.  170-173. 

*  "  I  am  on  my  way  to  the  coast  of  Mexico  and  California,  there  to  \» 
governed  as  circumstances  may  dictate  when  I  shall  have  reached  the 
scene  of  action  (:)...  we  are  now  crowding  all  sail  on  the  dired 
course  for  Mexico." 

'Letter  of  September  8  to  the  commanders  of  the  ships  under  hiBk 


CI 6  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

no  donbt  that  the  former  could  not  and  would  not  accept 
the  conditions  made  bj  the  latter.  He  learned,  at  the  same 
time,  from  a  Boston  newspaper,  which  cited  a  New  Orleans 
newspaper  as  authority,  that  California  had  been  purchased 
from  Mexico  by  England  for  seven  millions  of  dollars.  The 
•'  corroboration "  of  this  rumor  was  furnished  him  by  the 
departure  of  the  English  admiral  Richard  Thomas  with  his 
squadron  from  the  harbor  of  Callao,  with  sealed  instructions 
which  had  just  arrived  from  England.  All  these  things  taken 
together  made  it  his  "  duty,"  "  at  once  "  to  secure  a  proper 
place  on  the  coast  of  California,  for  if  the  two  states  were 
really  engaged  in  war,^  the  nation  would  necessarily  expect 
the  best  utilization  of  its  ships,  and  if  England  had  really 
purchased  California,  it  was  of  course  necessary,  according 
to  the  principles  of  the  Monroe  doctrine,  to  prevent  the 
occupation.''  So  far  as  the  law  of  nations  was  concerned, 
the  commodore  was  all  the  more  firmly  convinced  of  the 
impregnability  of  his  position  because  he  had  thoroughly 
(Mscussed  this  side  of  the  question  with  "  the  very  discreet  and 
capable  representative  of  the  United  States  in  Lima."    The 

"•     .    ,    .    it  at  once  became  my  duty  to  secure  some  point  on  this 
coast."    Letter  of  October  22,  to  W.  Thompson. 

' "  And  if  the  views  of  the  late  President  Monroe,  as  expressed  in  his 
celebrated  message  to  congress,  December  2, 1823,  are  still  received  as  the 
avowed  and  fixed  policy  of  our  country,  as  it  undoubtedly  is  our  interest, 
under  the  inherent  attribute  of  self-preservation,  which  all  independent 
nations  have  the  indubitable  right  to  exercise,  we  should  consider  the  mil- 
itary occupation  of  the  Californias  by  any  European  power,  but  more  par- 
ticularly by  our  great  commercial  rival  England,  and  especially  at  this  par- 
ticular juncture,  as  a  measure  so  decidedly  hostile  to  the  true  interest  of  ' 
the  United  States,  as  not  only  to  warrant  but  to  make  it  our  duty  to  fore- 
stall the  design  of  Admiral  Thomas,  if  possible,  by  supplanting  the  Mexican 
flag  with  that  of  the  United  States  at  Monterey,  San  Francisco,  and  any 
other  tenable  points  within  the  territory  said  to  have  been  recently  ceded 
by  secret  treaty  to  Great  Britain."  The  unanimous  resolution  of  the  coun- 
cil of  war 


JONES  BEFORE  MONTEKET.  617 

administration  needed  not  to  fear  getting  into  trouble,  be- 
cause he  would  try  to  act  in  the  sense  of  the  administration 
throughout.^  To  make  entirely  sure  of  this,  he  invited  the 
commanders  of  the  three  ships  to  a  council  of  war,  which 
unconditionally  approved  his  resolves.'"* 

On  the  19th  of  October,  the  squadron  arrived  before  Mon- 
terey. The  commander  of  a  bark  to  whom  the  commodore 
spoke  at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor,  and  two  Mexican  officers 
who  came  on  board  his  ship,  answered  to  his  inquiries,  that 
they  knew  nothing  of  hostilities  between  the  United  States 
and  Mexico.  As,  however,  the  captain  of  a  ship  declared 
that  rumors  of  war  had  come  from  Mazatlan  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands  also,  the  commodore  continued  convinced  of  the  cor- 
rectness of  his  bold  assumptions.^  He  had  all  the  less  hesi- 
tation to  proceed  to  carry  out  his  original  programme  because 
Mexico  was  obviously  the  aggressor,  since  it  had  conditionally 
declared  war.*  But  after  all  these  wonderful  things,  think  what  • 

'  "  .  .  .  in  all  that  I  may  do  I  shall  confine  myself  strictly  to  what 
I  may  suppose  would  be  your  views  and  orders,  had  you  the  means  of  com- 
municating them  to  me." 

'  It  is  indeed  worthy  of  mention  that  all  these  four  gentlemen  were  from 
the  slave  states. 

'  "  The  time  for  action  had  now  arrived;  whilst  nothing  had  occurred  to 
shake  my  belief  in  the  certainty  of  hostilities  with  Mexico,  the  reiterated 
rumored  cession  of  California  to  England  was  strengthened  by  what  I  have 
ahready  related.  Hence  no  time  was  to  be  lost."  Report  of  October  24, 
1842. 

*  " .  .  .  but  if  1  am  right  (and  of  which  there  can  be  but  Httle  doubt) 
in  assigning  to  Mexico  the  attitude  of  a  nation  having  declared  conditional 
war,  then,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  Mexico  is  the  aggressor, 
and  as  such  is  responsible  for  all  evils  and  consequences  resulting  from  the 
hostile  and  menacing  position  in  which  she  placed  herself  on  the  4th  of 
June  last."  Report  of  October  24,  1842.  As  early  as  September  13th  he 
had  said  in  his  report:  "  I  beg  to  assure  you  that  no  precipitate  steps  will 
be  taken  by  which  aggression  will  be  justly  chargeable  on  me;  "  yet  he 
had  added;  "at  the  same  time  I  shall  not  shrink  from  any  responsibility 
which,  in  my  judgment,  the  honor  and  interest  of  our  country  may  require." 


618  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

we  maj  of  the  international  law  and  the  logic  of  the  commo- 
dore, his  precaution  is  worthy  of  all  recognition.  Simultane- 
ouslj  with  the  demand  made  on  the  commander  to  surrender 
the  place,  Jones  sent  a  printed  proclamation  into  the  country 
which  announced  to  the  inhabitants  the  protection  of  the  star- 
spangled  banner  for  all  time,  and  which  offered  the  population 
of  all  California  the  blessings  of  the  rights  of  citizenship 
of  the  United  States.^  Whether  the  law  of  nations  or  Mex- 
ico's "  conditional "  declaration  of  war  gave  the  commodore 
the  right  to  grant  tlie  rights  of  citizenship  of  the  United 
States,  according  as  it  seemed  good  to  him,  he  does  not  say. 
Certain  it  is,  however,  that  this  power  is  not  granted  to  ship 
captains  by  the  constitution.  Whether  the  proclamation 
was  printed  in  Callao,  or  whether  the  precaution  —  Jones's  or 
that  of  some  other  people  —  dated  still  further  back,  cannot, 
unfortunately,  be  ascertained.  The  Mexicans  did  not  trouble 
themselves  about  this  point,  nor  did  they  put  any  questions 
whatever.  They  even  refused  the  eighteen  hours'  time  for 
consideration  which  the  commodore  had  granted  them.  The 
conditions  of  capitulation  were  agreed  upon  during  the  night 
between  the  19t]i  and  the  20th  of  October.  Before  they 
were  subscribed,  a  merchant  from  the  United  States,  long 
established  in  Monterey,  came  on  board  and  assured  Jones 
that  they  had  much  more  recent  news  at  that  place,  and  that 
there  was  no  talk  of  war.     But  as  he  could  not  immediately 

'  "ITiose  stars  and  stripes,  infallible  emblems  of  civil  liberty,  of  liberty 
of  speech,  freedom  of  the  press,  and  above  all,  the  freedom  of  conscience, 
with  constitutional  right  and  lawful  security  to  worship  the  Great  Deity  in 
the  way  most  congenial  to  each  one's  sense  of  duty  to  his  Creator,  now 
float  triumphantly  before  you,  and  henceforth  and  forever,  will  give  pro- 
tection and  security  to  you,  to  your  children,  and  to  unborn,  countless 
thousands.  .  .  .  Such  of  the  inhabitants  of  California,  whether  natives 
or  foreigners,  as  may  not  be  disposed  to  accept  the  high  privilege  of  citi- 
zenship, and  to  live  peaceably  under  the  free  government  of  the  United 
States,  will  be  allowed  time  to  dispose  of  their  property,"  etc. 


MEXICO  DEMAITDS  SATISFACTION.  619 

produce,  on  the  spot,  the  newspapers  he  had  mentioned,  the 
commodore  would  not  permit  himself  to  be  misled,  and  he 
hoisted  the  flag  of  the  Union  over  the  fort.  The  newspapers 
were  brought  immediately  after.  The  commodore  was  con- 
vinced of  the,  to  him,  almost  incredible  fact  that  his  shrewd 
calculations  no  more  harmonized  with  facts  than  yes  with 
no,  and  he  again  sailed  out  into  the  sea,  with  the  pleasing 
consciousness  that  he  had  acted  entirely  correctly,  and  mth 
the  most  scrupulous  discretion. 

The  Mexican  government  did  not  share  this  view,  and  de- 
manded satisfaction.  A  letter  of  excuse  came  from  Wash- 
ington. The  Mexican  ambassador,  Almonte,  however,  allowed 
himself  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  that  letter  said 
nothing  of  punishing  Jones  for  his  "unheard-of  attempt" 
(inaudito  atentado).  This  suggestion  was  rejected,  with 
the  remark  that  Jones  had  not  at  all  desired  to  insult  Mexico.* 
And  the  man  who  had  the  cool  shamelessness  to  give  such 
an  answer,  was  neither  a  slave-holder  nor  a  friend  of  the  an- 
nexation of  Texas;  it  was  Daniel  "Webster.  The  house  of 
representatives  gave  expression,  indirectly,  to  its  acquies- 
cence. It  refused,  by  a  vote  of  eighty-three  against  seventy- 
four,  to  suspend  the  rules  in  order  to  make  the  discussion  of 

■  "  But  General  Almonte  and  his  government  must  see  that  Commodore 
Jones  intended  no  indignity  to  the  government  of  Mexico,  nor  anything 
unlawful  to  her  citizens.  Unfortunately,  he  supposed,  as  he  asserts,  that 
a  state  of  war  actually  existed,  at  the  time,  between  the  two  countries.  If 
this  supposition  hiid  been  well  founded,  all  that  he  did  would  have  been 
justifiable,  so  that,  whatever  of  imprudence  or  impropriety  he  may  be 
chargeable  vrith,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  intended  any  ai&ont  to 
the  honor  of  the  Mexican  government,  or  to  violate  the  relations  of  peace. 
.  .  .  In  the  clearly  manifest  absence  of  all  illegal  and  improper  intent, 
some  allowance  may  be  properly  extended  towards  an  act  of  indiscretion 
in  a  quarter  so  very  remote,  and  in  which  correct  information  of  distant 
events  is  not  soon  or  easily  obtained."  January  30,  1843.  Compare  the 
judgment  on  the  case  of  the  schooner  JefiFerson,  in  the  reiiort  of  the  house 
committee  on  foreign  affaors.    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XIII,  p.  303, 


620    JAOKSON's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

a  resolution  introduced   by  Adams,  and  whicli   called  t"he 
action  of  the  commodore  bj  its  right  name,  possible.* 

The  indiscreet  heat  of  Commodore  Jones  was  exceedingly 
vexatious  to  the  administration.  It  seems  to  have  made  the 
annexation  of  Texas  its  order  of  the  day  at  the  moment  when, 
by  the  Ashburton  treaty  (August  9,  1842),  the  danger  that, 
in  case  of  war,  Mexico  might  easily  obtain  an  ally  in  England 
against  the  United  States,  was  materially  diminished.  But 
it  needed  time  to  mature  its  plans,  and  Jones  had  prema- 
turely alarmed  the  opponents  of  them.  If  some  happy  acci- 
dent had  prevented  the  execution  of  his  stu])id  coup  de  mairiy 
the  twenty-seventh  congress  would  presumably  not  have  been 
called  together  by  the  storm  bell.  There  were,  indeed,  at  first, 
only  thirteen  members  of  that  congress  who,  on  the  3d  of 
March,  1843,  cried  out  to  "  the  people  of  the  free  states  " 
that  the  enemy  was  stealthily  creeping  to  fall  upon  them, 
and  was  already  before  the  gates.'^  But  at  their  head  stood 
John  Quincy  Adams,  and  their  cry  of  warning  was  conveyed 
in  such  a  tone  that,  coming  from  his  mouth,  it  necessarily 
made  a  terribly  forcible  impression  on  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands. It  gave  expression  to  the  firm  conviction  that  the 
free  states  had  not  only  the  right  not  to  submit  to  the  annex- 

'  Adams's  resolution  read:  "  Resolved,  That  the  invasion  of  the  territory 
of  a  foreifrn  nation,  at  peace  with  the  United  States,  by  any  military  or 
naval  officer  of  the  United  States,  is  at  once  an  anrt^avated  oftense  against 
that  forei^  nation,  ag:ainst  the  peace  of  the  world,  and  against  the  consti- 
tution and  people  of  the  United  States,  for  the  signal  punishment  of  which 
further  provision  ought  to  be  made  by  law."    Niles,  LXIV,  p.  173. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  173-175.  "...  We  have  not  time  ...  to  enter 
upon  a  detailed  statement  of  the  reasons  which  force  upon  our  minds  the 
conviction  that  this  project  is  by  no  means  abandoned;  that  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  counti-y  interested  in  the  continuance  of  domestic  slavery  and 
the  slave  trade  in  these  United  States  have  solemnly  and  unalterably  deter- 
mined that  it  shall  be  speedily  carried  into  execution,  and  that,  by  this 
admission  of  a  new  slave  territory  and  slave  states,  the  undue  ascendency 
of  the  slave-holding  power  in  the  goveitoment  shall  be  secured  and  riveted 
beyond  all  redemption." 


HOUSTON  ON  TEXAS.  621 

ation,  but  that  they  would  not  submit  to  it,  —  that  annexa- 
tion and  the  dissolution  of  the  Union  were  one  and  the  same 
thins:,' 

During  the  four  months  which  intervened  between  the 
occupation  of  Monterey  and  this  appeal,  a  great  deal  was, 
indeed,  done  for  annexation,  yet  it  still,  in  great  part,  re- 
mained a  deep  secret.  Texas  had  been  sinking  until  it  be- 
came a  really  pitiful  picture  of  a  state.  The  president's 
message  of  .the  1st  of  December,  1842,'  drew  a  picture  of 
the  condition  of  things,  which,  were  it  not  known  that  it 
was  the  work  of  the  pen  of  the  hero  of  San  Jacinto,  one 
would  be  tempted  to  take  it  for  the  extravagant  fancy  of  a 
malicious  calumniator.  Houston  began  with  the  general 
complaint  that  the  decline  had  been  a  steady  one,  and  at  a 
rate  almost  unparalleled.^    He  complains  that  it  had  not 

'  "  We  hold  that  there  is  not  only  '  no  political  necessity '  for  it,  '  no  ad- 
vantages io  be  derived  from  it,'  but  that  there  is  no  constitutional  power 
delegated  to  any  depai-tment  of  the  national  government  to  authorize  it; 
that  no  act  of  congress  or  treaty  for  annexation  can  impose  the  least  obh- 
gation  upon  the  several  states  of  this  Union  to  submit  to  such  an  unwar- 
r-.mtable  act,  or  to  receive  into  their  family  and  fraternity  such  misbegotten 
and  illegitimate  progeny. 

"  We  hesitate  not  to  say  that  annexation,  effected  by  any  act  or  proceed- 
ing of  the  Federal  government,  or  any  of  its  departments,  would  be  identi- 
cal with  dissolution.  It  would  be  a  violation  of  our  national  compact,  its 
objects,  designs,  and  the  great  elementary  principles  which  entered  into 
its  formation,  of  a  character  so  deep  and  fundamental,  and  would  be  an 
attempt  to  eternize  an  institution  and  a  power  of  (a)  nature  so  unjust  in 
tiiemselves,  soii\iurious  to  the  interests  and  abhorrent  to  the  feeUngs  of 
the  people  of  the  free  states,  as,  in  our  opinion,  not  only  inevitably  to  result 
in  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  but  fully  to  justify  it;  and  we  not  only  assert 
that  the  people  of  the  free  states  *  ought  not  to  submit  to  it,'  but  we  a&ff 
with  confidence,  they  would  not  submit  to  it." 

'  Niles,  LXIV,  pp.  18,  19. 

*  "  lustGiid  of  deriving  faciUties  and  advantages  from  the  lapse  of  time, 
it-i  dechne,  since  the  year  1838,  to  its  present  point  of  depression,  has  been 
regidar  and  more  rapid  than  perhaps  that  of  any  other  country  on  the 
globe  possessing  the  same  natural  advantages.    From  possessing  a  currency 


622  Jackson's  administration  — annexation  of  texas. 

been  possible  for  him  to  secure  the  support  of  a  standing 
corps  of  troops  of  from  one  hundred  to  two  hundred  men 
for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  frontier,^  and  raises  the 
great  question,  how  the  government  could  be  continued 
without  any  money  whatever.'^  Tlie  punishment  of  crim- 
inals had  to  be  left  to  heaven  or  judge  Lynch,  because  there 
were  no  jails,'  and  the  laws  remained  unknown  to  the  people 
because  the  postofRce  disappeared  when  the  money  went,* 
and  the  crowd  snapped  its  fingers  in  the  face  of  the  govern- 
ment unpunished.^ 

nearly  at  par,  with  a  circulating  medium  but  little  more  than  half  a  million, 
and  with  a  credit  unparalleled  for  a  country  of  its  age,  we  find  ourselves 
in  a  condition  utterly  destitute  of  credit,  without  a  currency,  without  means, 
and  miUions  in  debt." 

'  "At  tiie  commencement  of  the  present  administration,  it  was  the 
earnest  desire  of  the  executive  to  be  enabled,  by  acts  of  congress,  to  main- 
tain a  force  on  the  frontier  amounting  from  one  to  two  hundred  men. 
Could  this  have  been  done,  he  remains  satisfied  and  confirmed  in  the 
opinion  thai  the  recent  calamities  and  annoyances  upon  our  frontier  would 
not  have  occurred.  Unless  something  can  be  done  to  prevent  the  system 
of  molestation  practiced  by  the  enemy,  it  will  cause  Texas  to  subdue 
herself." 

'  "  For  the  want  of  means,  every  possible  embarrassment  has  been  pre- 
sented to  the  administration.  Texas,  in  truth,  presents  an  anomaly  in  the 
history  of  nations,  for  no  country  has  ever  existed  without  a  currency,  nor 
has  any  government  ever  been  administered  without  means." 

*  "There  are  not  jails  and  prisons  in  the  country  for  the  confinement  of 
the  accused,  nor  are  the  several  counties  in  a  situation  to  pay  a  tax  suffi- 
cient to  insure  the  safe  keeping  of  culprits." 

*  "Nothing  is  better  calculated  to  present  the  deplorable  financial  con- 
dition of  Texas  than  the  situation  of  our  postoffice  and  mail  establishment. 
For  the  years  1840  and  1841,  not  less  than  $190,470  in  promissory  notes, 
besides  $4,258  in  exchequer  bills,  were  appropriated  to  sustain  the  estab- 
lishment. For  the  service  of  the  present  year,  congress  appropriated  only 
$5,000  in  exchequer  bills,  without  making  any  allowance  for  their  depreci- 
ation; nor  did  they  leave  any  discretion  with  the  executive  to  sustain  this 
important  branch  of  the  government.  Texas  at  this  time  furnishes  the 
singular  fact  of  a  government  without  the  means  of  conveying  mtelligence 
or  distributing  the  laws  throughout  the  republic." 

*  "  In  the  month  of  March,  last,  during  the  incursion  of  the  enemy, 


ENGLAND  AND  TEXAS.  623 

What  was  to  be  the  npshot  of  all  this?  It  had  been  feared 
from  the  first  that  European  powers  might  look  with  covet- 
ous eyes  on  the  rich  prize.*  England  was,  of  course,  first 
thought  of  in  this  connection;  and  if  England  desired  the 
acquisition,  obstacles  could  be  placed  in  her  way  only  by  the 
United  States,  If  matters  continued  with  Texas  as  they  had 
been  thus  far,  it  would  soon  have  to  cast  itself  into  the  arms 
of  the  first  power  which  opened  them  to  it.  But  England's 
past  certainly  suggested  the  question,  whether  she  would  not 
feel  tempted  to  obtain  a  firm  footing  here.  And  if  Eng- 
land's action  gave  any  reason  whatever  for  this  suspicion, 
the  United  States  certainly  could  not  pay  any  attention  to 
the  fact  that  Mexico  refused  to  relinquish  its  rightful  title 
to  Texas.  To  speak  of  "  self-preservation  "  was  an  exaggera- 
tion ;  but  the  Union  had  unquestionably  the  greatest  interest 
not  to  get  in  the  south  any  more  than  in  the  north,  its  most 
powerful  rival  for  a  neighbor,  and  not  to  be  compelled  to 
share  with  it  the  supremacy  over  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.     I 

ander  the  provisions  of  the  constitution,  the  president  felt  it  to  be  his  im- 
perative doty  to  order  a  removal  of  the  archives  and  heads  of  departments 
from  the  city  of  Austin. to  a  place  of  safety.  As  to  the  propriety  and 
necessity  of  the  act  no  reasonable  doubt  could  exist.  Resistance,  however, 
has  been  offered  and  continued  up  to  the  present  time.  Acts  of  the  most 
seditious  and  unauthorized  character  have  been  perpetrated  by  persons 
styling  themselves  the  'Archive  Committee,'  positively  refusing  obedience 
to  the  orders  of  the  executive  and  refusing  to  permit  individuals  to  remove 
from  that  place  with  their  effects,  unless  a  passport  was  granted  by  some 
member  of  said  committee.  The  executive  felt  a  reluctance  to  have 
recourse  to  such  measures  as  would  have  enabled  him  to  carry  out  the  pro- 
visions of  the  constitution.  The  reasons  for  the  removal  of  the  archives 
from  the  city  of  Austin  still  existi'ng,  it  was  deemed  most  proper  to  convene 
tlie  congress  at  this  point.  The  subject  was  laid  before  congress  at  the 
late  extra  session,  and  no  definite  action  took  place." 

'  As  early  as  the  23d  of  May,  1836,  Webster  said  in  the  senate:  "  He 
had  no  doubt  that  attempts  would  be  made  by  some  European  government 
to  obtain  a  cession  of  Texas  from  the  government  of  Mexico."  D^b.  of 
Congr.,  XII,  p.  763. 


C24:  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

know  nothino'  which  warrants  the  conclusion  that  Enfjland 
really  had  any  such  plans.  But  that,  at  the  time,  there  were 
many  in  the  Union  who  were  convinced  of  this,  it  is  too 
easy  to  understand  to  permit  their  fears  to  be  called  a  com- 
edy without  an}'^  more  ado. 

As  the  south  had  the  greater  interest  in  the  acquisition  of 
Texas,  the  most  unfeigned  mistrust  of  England  was,  of  course, 
to  be  found  mainly  there.  And  with  the  south,  more 
especially,  this  mistrust  was  not  entirely  groundless.  It 
looked  upon  itself  as  threatened  not  only  in  case  England 
should  aspire  to  possess  the  country,  but  there  was  danger 
to  it  in  the  very  possibility  that  England  might  exercise  an 
influence  there.  It  is  self-evident  that  this  influence  would 
necessarily  have  a  tendency  inimical  to  slavery.  England 
had  already  concluded  a  treaty  with  Texas  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  slave  trade,  and  now  came  the  dreadful  tidinga  . 
that  slavery  was  dragging  out  so  wretched  a  life,  that  thei*e 
was  but  little  wanting  to  give  it  the  last  finishing  stroke.* 

Thus,  everything  conspired  to  force  upon  the  farther-see- 
ing leaders  of  the  slavocracy  the  conviction,  that  there  was 
danger  in  delay.  Benton  ascribes  to  Calhoun  the  paternity 
of  the  intrigue,  the  carrying  out  of  whtch  was  planned  with 
great  skill,  and  which  was  destined  to  bring  the  south  finally 
to  the  long  wished  for  goal.     Benton  is,  indeed,  a  very  par- 

'  Ex- President  Mirabeau  B.  Lamar  wrote  to  his  friends  in  Georgia :  "  The 
anti-slavery  party  in  Texas  will  acquire  the  ascendency,  and  may  not  only 
abohsh  slavery  by  a  constitutional  vote,  but  may  change  the  whole  charac- 
ter of  the  constitution  itself. 

"  At  present  the  anti-slavery  party  is  in  the  minority;  but  it  would  be 
dangerous,  even  now,  to  agitate  the  question  with  much  violence,  for  the 
majority  of  the  people  of  Texas  are  not  owners  of  slaves.  Texas,  if  left  to 
stand  alone,  there  is  every  probability  that  slavery  will  be  abandoned  in 
that  country.  Tlie  negroes  are  yet  but  few  in  number,  and  would  be 
emancipated  in  the  country  without  the  shghtest  inconvenience,  and  indeed 
would  continue  to  be  useful  in  the  capacity  of  hirelings."  Jay,  Review  of 
the  Mexican  War,  pp.  87,  88. 


gilmee's  letter.  625 

tisan  witness;  but  even  if  the  proof  cannot  be  produced, 
all  that  we  know  bears  testimony  to  the  correctness  of  the 
allegation.  Calhoun  was  the  first  to  declare  the  necessity 
of  annexation  in  the  senate.  His  master  hand  demonstra- 
bly wove  the  woof,  into  the  warp,  and  he  prided  himself  on 
being  tlie  real  originator  of  annexation.*  That  he  at  first 
carefully  kept  himself  concealed  in  the  back-ground,  is  sat- 
isfactorily explained  by  the  fact  that  Jackson's  influence  liad 
to  be  obtained  beforehand. 

In  the  beginning  of  1843,  a  Baltimore  newspaper  pub- 
lished a  letter  of  Gilmer,  dated  January  10,  to  "a  friend  " 
(Duff  Green)  in  Maryland,  on  the  necessity  of  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas.  Benton  says  that  the  letter  was  like  a  flash 
of  lightning  from  a  clear  sky.*  But  nothing  further  ensued, 
or  rather  what  followed  was  played  under  cover,  and  the 
public  did  not  have  the  slightest  intimation  of  it.  Gilmer's 
letter  touched  most  strongly  the  two  chords  in  Jackson's 
breast  which  were  sure  to  find  the  loudest  echo:  preserva- 
tion against  England's  ambitious  desires  and  the  strength- 
ening of  the  Union.  The  name  of  Gilmer  as  well  as  Green, 
however,  awakened  the  suspicion  that  Calhoun  was  seated 
in  the  prompter's  box.  That  Jackson's  old  mistnist  of  the 
"  honest  nullificator,"  a  mistrust  intensified  by  personal  ha- 
tred, might  not  be  awakened,  he  was  approached  by  a  cir- 
cuitous way.  Gilmer's  letter  reached  him  enclosed  in  one 
of  Aaron  Y.  Brown's,  of  Tennessee,  who,  according  to  Ben- 

'  "  I  trust,  Mr.  President,  there  will  be  no  dispute  hereafter  as  to  who  is 
the  real  author  of  annexation.  Less  than  twelve  months  since,  1  had 
many  competitors  for  that  honor.  .  .  .  But  now,  since  the  war  [with 
Mexico]  has  become  unpopular,  they  all  seem  to  agree  that  I,  in  reality, 
am  the  author  of  annexation.  I  will  not  put  the  honor  aside.  I  may 
now  rightfully  and  mdisputably  claim  to  be  the  author  of  that  great  meas- 
ure. ...  I  take  pride  to  myself  as  being  the  author  of  this  great 
measure."    Calh.'s  Works,  IV,  pp.  362,  363. 

» Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  581. 
40 


626  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

ton's  representation,  had.  no  idea  by  whom  and  for  wliat 
purpose  he  was  used  as  a  tool.^  Jackson  took  fire  immedi- 
ately. As  early  as  the  12th  of  February,  he  answered  in 
the  tone  desired,  and  besides  performed  a  work  of  superero- 
gation in  making  some  corrections  of  the  story,  which,  in 
the  subsequent  agitation  of  the  question,  might  perform  ex- 
cellent service.^ 

Although  it  had  confessedly  been  sought  to  get  this  letter 
only  for  the  purpose  of  working  on  the  masses,  it  was,  not- 
withstanding, now  shown  only  to  the  initiated,  and  in  the 
deepest  confidence.  The  question  of  annexation  was  to  be 
made  the  point  about  which  the  presidential  election  of  1844 
was  to  turn.  This  made  it  necessary  to  put  Yan  Buren's 
candidacy  aside.  But  Jackson  held  so  firmly  to  Yan  Buren, 
that  everything  would  have  been  staked  if  he  had  been  now 

'  Brown  said  himself,  on  the  12th  of  June,  1844,  in  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives: "  Early  in  the  winter  of  1842-43, 1  became  convinced  that  the 
affairs  of  Texas  were  coming  rapidly  to  a  crisis,  and  that  she  must  find  some 
strong  support,  or  she  could  not  sustain  herself  to  any  advantage  among 
the  independent  nations  of  the  earth.  Hence  it  naturally  occurred  to  me 
that  the  most  favorable  period  would  shortly  arrive  for  its  re-annexation 
to  the  United  States,  I  saw  the  present  administration  peculiarly  situ- 
ated. A  president  without  a  party  —  nay,  worse  than  that,  a  president 
between  two  great  parties,  seldom  sustained  by  either,  and  often  warred 
upon  by  both.  Under  such  circumstances,  I  apprehend  it  might  be  diffi- 
cult to  prevail  on  him,  however  anxious  he  might  be  personally  to  do  so, 
to  enter  on  any  great  measure  such  as  the  acquisition  of  Texas.  Influ- 
enced by  these  opinions,  in  January  (23),  1843,  I  addressed  a  letter  to 
General  Jackson,  adverting  to  many  or  all  of  these  circumstances,  and 
expressing  the  belief  that,  if  his  opinions  were  still  in  favor  of  the  meas- 
ure, as  I  knew  they  foi-merly  were,  a  clear  and  decided  letter  from  him 
might  be  useful  in  rousing  up  or  sustaining  the  administration  in  making 
such  a  movement.  In  the  spirit  of  ardent  affection  and  admiration,  I  ex- 
pressed the  desire  that  his  name  should  be  connected  with  a  great  achieve- 
ment like  that,  and  that  it  would  be  the  crowning  glory  of  his  long  and 
eventful  life."    Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  150. 

*  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  70.  Benton,  II,  p.  584,  erroneously  dates  the  letter 
the  12th  of  March. 


Webster's  resignation.  627 

allowed  to  suspect  that  the  two  questions  could  not  be  sepa- 
•ated  fi-om  one  another.  Hence,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
annexationists  had  to  have  recourse  to  the  tactics,  to  first 
secure  Jackson  and  the  whole  democratic  party  in  the  south- 
ern states  for  immediate  annexation,  to  such  an  extent  that 
they  could  no  longer  go  backward,  by  any  possibility,  for 
the  sake  of  a  question  of  persons.  This,  however,  required 
time,  and  hence,  with  the  postponement  of  the  nominating 
convention,  the  annexationists  succeeded  in  effecting  a  second 
important  move  on  the  chess  board,  even  if  it  proved  to  be 
a  fruitless  victory  for  the  Calhounites. 

In  the  mean  time,  the  old  question  of  claims  for  damages 
had  been  spun  out  by  the  administration  in  such  a  manner 
that  there  was  no  lack  of  a  pretext  for  a  breach  with  Mexico, 
which  might  serve  as  a  last  resource.  Mexico  had  made  this 
easy  for  it,  since  it  had  not  been  prompt  in  the  making  of 
the  payments  to  which  it  had  been  obligated  by  the  com- 
mission or  arbitration-court  of  1841-42.  Through  the  nego- 
tiations on  this  matter,  the  possibility  was  afforded  to  Waddy 
Thompson  to  wring  from  it  its  acquiescence  to  a  new  con- 
vention on  the  claims  for  damages  which  had  not  been  de- 
cided at  that  time.  On  the  other  hand,  the  concession  was 
made  to  Mexico  that  "all  claims  of  the  government  and  cit- 
izens of  Mexico  against  the  United  States"  should  be  settled 
in  this  convention.' 

Three  months  after  the  conclusion  of  this  convention,  on 
the  8th  of  May,  1843,  "Webster  resigned.  His  unconditional 
admirers  and  defenders,  like  Gushing,  ascribed  his  resigna- 
tion entirely  to  the  conviction,  that,  now,  the  problems 
which  had  determined  him,  in  spite  of  the  majority  of  his 
party,  to  remain  so  long  in  office,  were  solved.  But  accord- 
ing to  the  concordant  declarations  of  all  others,  the  presi- 
dent treated  him  Avith  such  studied  coldness  that  his  longer 

•Convention  of  January  30, 1843,  Art  6,  Stat  at  L.,  VIII,  p.  580. 


628  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

continuance  in  office  had  become  entirely  impossible.  If 
Tyler  wished  to  give  him  to  understand  that  he  did  not 
want  any  more  of  him,  by  calling  for  his  advice  just  as  sel- 
dom as  possible  —  and  this  view  is,  indeed,  very  probable  — 
it  is  unquestionable,  that  the  Texas  question  was  one  of  the 
most  material  motives  for  this  base  ingratitude.  But  what- 
soever judgment  may  be  passed  on  the  motives,  there  can  be 
no  diiferenco  of  opinion  as  to  the  effect:  with  "Webster's 
Dxit  from  the  cabinet  one  of  the  greatest  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  annexationists  was  removed. 

After  the  interregnum  under  Legare,  who  died  in  Boston 
as  early  as  the  20th  of  June,  1843,  after  a  short  illness, 
Upshur,  as  secretary  of  state,  went  to  work  with  all  his 
energy.  Kow  the  fear  that  England  was  laboring  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  assumed  a  definite  form,  and 
was  used  as  a  very  powerful  lever  of  agitation.  Benton  ex- 
aggerates when  he  represents  the  matter  as  if  a  little  story 
had  been  fabricated.'  A  certain  Andrews  had  actually  been 
prosecuting  for  some  time  the  project  imposed  on  him-  as  a 
task.  He  was  now  in  England,  and  some  abolitionists  were 
not  entirely  without  hope  that  his  endeavors  would  be 
crowned  with  success.  But  Upshur  made  a  mountain  out  of 
a  mole  hill.  It  was  hardly  unknown  to  him  that  the  "  private 
citizen  "  who  was  now  sending  the  alarming  news  to  the 
United  States,  and  the  "  friend "  to  whom  Gilmer  had 
directed  his  letter  of  the  10th  of  January,  were  the  same 
person.  It  is,  therefore,  very  easy  to  consider  this  letter 
also  a  concerted  affair,  for  Andrews'  self-imposed  mission 
was,  by  no  means,  a  secret.'*    The  secretary  of  state  also 

'  "There  was  no  evidence  of  any  British  domination  or  abolition  plot  in 
Texas,  and  time  was  wanted  to  import  one  from  London."  Thirty  Years' 
View,  II,  p.  .585. 

'See  more  in  detail  in  this  matter,  Ashbel  Smith,  Eeminiscences  of 
the  Texas  Republic,  1875,  pp.  52-55.  Smith  was,  at  the  time,  the 
Texan  ambassador  in  London.      He  expresses  himself  very  bitterly  or 


THE   GOVEKNMEirr  AND   SLAVEEY.  629 

could  entertain  no  doubt  that  Duff  Green  would  not  have 
spared  the  coloring.  The  brush  was  no  longer  enough 
for  himself  —  he  simply  upset  the  color-pot.  The  United 
States  were  compelled  all  the  more  to  summon  all  their 
strength  to  avert  "  a  calamity  so  serious,"  since  England 
"  probably "  intended,  in  the  interest  of  her  industries,  to 
prepare  the  same  sad  fate  for  all  America  as  for  Texas.*  The 
secretary  of  state,  in  no  covert  language,  declared  it  to  be 

the  British  and  Foreign  Anti- Slavery  Society,  which  had  entered  into  a 
conspiracy  with  Mexico  and  the  American  abolitionists  against  Texas.  He 
compares  the  abolitionists  with  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  and  goes  so  far 
as  to  say:  "These  wretched  peddlers  in  humanity  were  plotting  to  crush 
oat  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  Texas."  But  the  charge  that  the  English 
ministry  was  in  league  with  the  abolitionists  he  rejects  as  entirely  unfounded. 

'  Upshur  to  Mr.  Murphy  [cliargi  d'affaires  of  the  United  States  in 
Texas],  Washington,  August  8,  1843.  "  A  letter  from  a  private  citizen  of 
Maryland,  then  in  London,  contains  the  following  passage : 

**  I  learn,  from  a  source  entitled  to  the  fullest  confidence,  that  there  is 
now  here  a  Mr.  Andrews,  deputed  by  the  abolitionists  of  Texas  to  negoti- 
ate with  the  British  government;  that  he  has  seen  Lord  Aberdeen,  and 
submitted  his  project  for  the  aboUtion  of  slavery  in  Texas;  which  is,  that 
there  shall  be  organized  a  company  in  England,  who  shall  advance  a  sum 
sufficient  for  the  slaves  now  in  Texas,  and  receive  in  payment  Texas  lands; 
that  the  sum  thus  advanced  shall  be  paid  over  as  an  indemnity  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery;  and  I  am  authorized  by  the  Texan  minister  to  say  to 
you,  that  Lord  Aberdeen  has  agreed  that  the  British  government  will 
guaranty  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  this  loan  upon  condition  that  the 
Texan  government  will  abolish  slavery. 

"  ...  It  [a  movement  of  this  sort]  cannot  be  permitted  to  succeed 
without  the  most  strenuous  efforts  on  our  part  to  arrest  a  calamity  so  ser- 
ious to  every  part  of  our  country. 

"  ...  We  might  probably  consider  this  as  part  of  a  general  plan 
by  which  England  would  seek  to  abolish  domestic  slavery  throughout  the 
entire  continent  and  islands  of  America,  in  order  to  find  or  create  new 
markets  for  the  products  of  her  home  industry,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
destroy  all  competition  with  the  industry  of  her  colonies. 

"...  The  establishment,  in  the  veiy  midst  of  oar  slaveholding 
states,  of  an  independent  government,  forbidding  the  existence  of  slavery, 
and  by  a  people  bom,  for  the  most  part,  among  us.  reared  up  in  our  hab- 
its, and  speaking  our  language,  could  not  fail  to  produce  the  most  unhappy 


630  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  duty  of  the  Union  to  watch  with  drawn  sword,  and  see 
that  its  neighbors  did  not  dare  to  get  rid  of  the  dragon- 
brood  of  slavery.  This  was  something  new  illustrative  of 
the  "let  us  alone"  of  the  slavocracy.  The  government  of 
the  controlling  power  of  the  new  world  took  a  stand,  with 
bayonet  fixed  and  with  burning  lunt,  against  nefarious  Eng- 
land, whom  it  suspected  of  wishing  to  smuggle  the  spirit  of 
the  nineteenth  century  into  Texas.  The  government  did  not 
allege  it  believed  that  Texas  would,  by  that  means,  be  thrown 
into  convulsions,  in  comparison  with  which  slavery  was  a 
small  evil.  It  knew  with  how  little  danger,  how  playfully 
and  easily  emancipation  could  be  effected  there.  It  frankly 
admitted  that  the  slavocracy  of  the  United  States  would  be 
compelled,  in  order  to  maintain  itself,  to  force  the  standard 
of  the  holy  war  of  the  slavocracy  into  the  hands  of  the  Union. 
Was  it  so  very  difficult  to  understand  how  it  was  that  the 
abolitionists  came  to  ciirse  the  constitution  as  an  "  agree- 
ment with  hell?" 

effects  upon  both  parties.  If  Texas  were  in  that  condition,  her  territory 
would  afford  a  refuge  for  the  fugitive  slaves  of  Louisiana  and  Arkansas, 
and  would  hold  out  to  them  an  encouragement  to  run  away,  which  no 
municipal  regulations  of  those  states  could  possibly  counteract.  Even  if 
this  government  should  interpose  for  the  protection  of  the  slaveholder,  it 
would  be  very  difficult  so  to  arrange  the  subject  as  to  avoid  disputes  and 
collisions.  The  states  immediately  interested  would  be  most  likely  to  take 
the  subject  into  their  own  hands.  They  would  perceive  that  there  could 
not  be  any  security  for  that  species  of  property,  if  the  mere  crossing  of  a 
geographical  line  could  give  freedom  to  the  slave;  they  would  perceive 
that  the  protection  thus  offered  to  the  slave  would  remove  from  his  mind 
that  dread  of  consequences  which  restrains  him  from  the  commission  of 
the  worst  crimes;  they  would  feel  that  the  safety  of  themselves  and  their 
famifies  was  endangered;  they  would  live  in  continual  uneasiness  and  alarm, 
and  in  the  constant  exercise  of  a  painful  and  harassing  watchfuljiess. 
.  .  .  They  would  assume  the  right  to  reclaim  their  slaves  by  force,  and 
for  that  purpose  would  invade  the  territory  of  Texas.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
see  that  quarrels  and  war  would  soon  grow  out  of  this  state  of  things." 
Sen.  Doc.,  28th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No.  341,  pp.  18-22. 


UPSnUB   AND   BOCANEOBA-  631 

Upshur's  whole  reasoning  was  plainly  nothing  but  a  long- 
winded  circumlocution  of  the  short  sentence:  the  hour  of 
annexation  has  come.  In  Mexico,  it  was  recognized  that  the 
decisive  time  had  arrived.  Bocanegra,  on  the  23d  of  August, 
1843,  declared  to  Thompson  that  Mexico  would  look  upon 
annexation  as  a  declaration  of  war.^  The  next  day,  Thomp- 
son answered  that  it  was  an  entirely  unfounded  rumor  that 
the  United  States  contemplated  the  annexation  of  Texas.' 
Upshur  soon  taught  him  better.  On  the  20th  of  October, 
he  instructed  the  ambassador,  in  case  the  question  should 
come  up  again  for  discussion,  to  say  that  he  was  not  in- 
structed as  to  the  intentions  of  his  government,  but  at  the 
same  time  to  intimate  to  Mexico  that  it  had  nothing  to  say 
in  the  matter.' 

Four  days  previous,  on  the  16th  of  October,  Upshur  had 
proposed  a  treaty  of  annexation  to  the  Texan  agent.*    The 

'  "  ,  .  .  he  [the  president  J  has  ordered  the  undersigned  to  declare 
to  the  Hon.  Waddy  Thompson,  with  the  view  that  he  may  submit  it  to  his 
government,  that  the  Mexican  government  will  consider  equivalent  to  a 
declaration  of  war  against  the  Mexican  repubUc  the  passage  of  an  act  for 
the  incorporation  of  Texas  with  the  territory  of  the  United  States;  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  fact  being  suflBcient  for  the  immediate  proclamation  of  war." 
Sen.  Doc.,  28th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  Vol.  I,  No.  1,  p.  ?6. 

«Ibid.,  p.  27. 

' "  Should  the  subject  ...  be  again  brought  to  your  attention  in  a 
proper  manner,  you  will  say  that  you  are  not  in  possession  ot  the  views  of 
your  government  in  relation  to  it.  You  may  intimate,  however,  if  the  oc- 
casion should  justify  it,  that,  as  the  independence  of  Texas  has  been  ac- 
knowledged, not  only  by  the  United  States,  but  also  by  all  the  other  prin- 
cipal powers  of  the  world,  .  .  .  she  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  independent 
and  sovereign  power,  competent  to  treat  for  herself ;  and  as  she  has  shaken 
ofiF  the  authority  of  Mexico,  and  successfully  resisted  her  power  for  eight 
years,  the  United  States  will  not  feel  themselves  under  any  obhgation  to 
respect  her  former  relation  with  that  country."  Ibid.,  p.  85.  This  last 
declaration  he  gave  himself  to  the  Mexican  ambassador,  Almonte,  in  a 
letter  of  December  1,  1843.    Ibid.,  p.  48. 

♦NUes.  LXVI,  p.  169. 


632  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

answer  of  his  own  agent  in  Texas,  dated  the  24th  of  Septem- 
ber, to  his  letters  of  alarm,  must  have  been  in  his  hands 
already.  Murphy  made  merry  over  Andrews'  project,*  but 
he  had  much  to  relate  of  all  kinds  of  possible  and  impossible 
operations,  by  means  of  which  England  was  endeavoring  to 
acquire  Texas  from  Mexico.  The  minister  took  delight  in 
putting  this  string  also  on  his  violin,  without,  however,  stop- 
ping his  confident  fiddling  on  the  first.^  As  he  would  not  be 
convinced,  it  of  course  could  make  no  impression  on  him,  that 
Lord  Aberdeen  questioned,  in  the  most  decided  manner,  the 
truth  of  the  disclosures  which  the  Texan  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don had  "  authorized  "  the  "  private  citizen  "  from  Maryland 
to  make.^  Lord  Aberdeen  greatly  erred  if  he  supposed  that 
he  could  deceive  this  piercing  mind  by  his  mode  of  expres- 
sion. That  the  Union  would  be  strengthened  by  the  annex- 
ation was  unquestionable,  and,  therefore,  the  interest  of  the 
civiKzed  world  evidently  demanded  that  slavery  in  Texas 
should  be  protected  against  the  plots  of  England.* 

Upshur  was  joyfully  confident  of  having  reached  the  goal, 

'  "The  ridiculous  transaction  played  off  in  London." 

*  Murphy  had  advised  him:  "  Say  nothing  about  abolition."  And  in  an- 
other letter  he  said:  "  Do  not  offend  our  fanatical  brethren  of  the  north. 
Talk  about  civil  and  political  and  religious  liberty.  This  wiU  be  found  the 
safest  issue  to  go  before  the  world  with."  Jay,  Review  of  the  Mexican 
War,  p.  90. 

*  Everett,  the  ambassador  in  London,  3d  of  November,  1843.  Lord  Aber- 
deen had  answered  to  his  interpellation:  "That  England  had  long  been 
pledged  to  encourage  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade  and  of  slavery,  as  far  as 
her  influence  extended,  and  in  every  proper  way,  but  had  no  wish  to  inter- 
fere in  the  internal  concerns  of  foreign  governments.  ...  In  reference  to 
Texas,  the  suggestion  that  England  had  made  or  intended  to  make  the 
aboUtion  of  slavery  the  condition  of  any  treaty  arrangement  with  her  was 
wholly  vfithout  foundation.  It  had  never  been  alluded  to  in  that  connec- 
tion."   Sen.  Doc.,  28th  Congr.,  1st  Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No.  841,  pp.  38,  39. 

♦Upshur  to  Murphy,  November  21,  1843:  "  It  is  impossible  to  be  too 
watcliful  or  too  dihgent  in  a  matter  which  involves  such  momentous  con- 
sequences, not  only  to  our  country,  but  to  the  whole  civilized  world.    The 


TEXAS  GB0W8  EESEKVED.  633 

for  he  believed  himself  sure  of  the  requisite  majority  in  the 
senate,^  and  he  considered  hesitation  on  the  part  of  Texas  im- 
possible. And  jet  what  was  supposed  to  be  unthinkable  came 
to  pass.2  Now  that  so  much  was  doing  in  the  White  House 
about  Texas,  Texas  began  to  show  reserve.  This  audacity  was 
so  surprising  that  the  secretary  of  state  permitted  himself  to 
be  carried  so  far  away  as  to  give  utterance  to  certain  expres- 
sions which  afibrded  an  interesting  commentary  to  the  un- 
selfish good  will  with  which  the  United  States  had  observed 
the  birth  of  this  independent  republic,  and  furnished  a 
new  proof  as  to  how  far  from  the  administration  the  prose- 
cution of  "  sectional  interests"  was.  Upshur  causexi  the 
Texans  to  be  warned  through  Murphy  not  to  transform  the 
United  States  into  their  bitterest  enemy,  and  at  the  same 
time  make  the  continuation  of  slavery  in  Texas  impossible.' 

view  which  this  government  takes  of  it  excludes  every  idea  of  mere  sec- 
tional interest.  We  regard  it  as  involving  tlie  security  of  the  south,  and 
the  strength  and  prosperity  of  every  part  of  the  Union.  Sincerely  believ- 
ing that  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  tiie  United  States  will  strengthen  the 
bonds  of  union  among  ourselves;  give  encouragement  and  sustenance  to 
our  navigating,  commercial  and  manufacturing  interests;  present  a  foun- 
dation for  harmony  with  foreign  countries,  and  aSbrd  us  gi-eat  security 
against  their  aggressions  in  case  of  war;  we  anxiously  desire  it,  as  a  great 
blessing  to  every  part  of  our  country.  We  cannot  anticipate  any  objection 
on  the  part  of  Texas."    Ibid.,  p.  43. 

'  "  Measures  have  been  taken  to  ascertain  the  opinions  and  views  of  sen- 
ators upon  the  subject,  and  it  is  found  that  a  clear  constitutional  majority 
of  two-thirds  are  in  favor  of  the  measure."    Ibid.,  p.  47. 

•Upshur  to  Murphy,  January  16,  1844:  "  You  are  probably  not  aware 
that  a  proposition  has  been  made  to  the  Texan  government  for  the  annex- 
ation of  the  country  to  the  United  States.  This,  I  learn  from  the  Texan 
charg§,  has  been  for  the  present  declined."  Sen.  Doc.,  28th  Congr.,  1st 
Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No.  341,  p.  43.  On  the  2d  of  May,  1844,  Calhoun  informed 
the  president  that  nothing  written  oonld  be  found  concerning  this  refusal, 
in  the  department.    Ibid.,  p.  69. 

•  "  Instead  of  being,  as  we  ought  to  be,  the  closest  friends,  it  is  inevita- 
ble we  shall  become  the  bitterest  foes.  ...  If  Texas  should  not  be 
attached  to  the  United  States,  she  cannot  maintain  that  institution  [slavery] 
ten  years,  and  probably  not  half  that  time."    Ibid.,  p.  46. 


634  Jackson's  administeatiost —  annexation  op  texas. 

Possibly  it  iniglit  now  perforin  good  service,  that  an  ave- 
nue of  escape  had  been  left  open  for  all  cases,  inasmuch  as 
care  was  taken  to  have  a  permanent  pretext  for  a  contest  with 
Mexico.  Jay  says  that  the  subsequent  rejection  of  the  treaty 
of  annexation  suggests  the  supposition  that  Upshur  had  know- 
ingly wished  to  deceive  the  Texans  as  to  the  disposition  of 
the  senate,^  I  have  not  been  able  to  convince  myself  of  the 
correctness  of  this  conclusion.  The  very  course  which  the 
senate  allowed  itself  now  against  Mexico  points  to  a  dispo- 
sition in  that  body  which  makes  that  error  of  the  secretary 
of  state  seem  easily  explainable, 

Waddy  Thompson  had  succeeded  in  closing  the  treaty  of 
the  20th  of  Kovember  contemplated  in  the  convention  of 
the  30th  of  January,  1843.  His  wishes  were  acceded  to  in 
every  point.  He  had  yielded  only  in  one  point,  in  the  point 
that  the  commission  should  meet  in  Mexico.  He  declared 
this  request  of  Mexico  to  be  both  equitable  and  in  keeping 
with  the  state  of  affairs;'^  and  besides,  he  laid  stress  on  the 
fact  that  the  denial  of  this  concession  would  be  the  rejection 
of  the  whole  treaty.^     Spite  of  this,  it  pleased  the  senate  to 

'  Review  of  the  Mexican  War,  p.  91. 

'  "  I  succeeded,  with  difficult}',  in  obtaining  every  concession  which  I  had 
been  instractsd  to  ask,  and  in  some  points  more,  with  the  single  excepfion 
of  the  place  of  meeting  of  the  new  commission,  which  I  agreed  should  be 
Mexico  instead  of  Washington  .  ,  .  the  Mexican  plenipotentiaries 
offered  that  if  I  would  concede  to  them  the  point  of  the  commission  meet- 
ing at  Mexico  that  I  might  name  the  umpire,  to  which  I  at  once  acceded. 
I  could  not  see  any  great  importance  as  to  the  place  where  the  commission 
met,  the  more  especiiilly  as  nearly  all  of  the  seven-claims  which  alone  were 
to  be  submitted  to  this  commission  depended  upon  documentary  evidence 
entirely,  and  all  these  documents  were  in  the  public  archives  of  Mexico." 
W.  Thompson,  Recollections  of  Mexico,  pp.  225,  226. 

'In  a  letter  to  Upshur,  he  says:  "The  Mexican  plenipotentiaries  said 
that  the  last  commission  met  in  Washington,  and  tliat  it  was  their  right 
to  insist  that  this  one  should  meet  in  Mexico.  The  only  reply  that  I  could 
make  was,  that  the  claims  presented  to  that  commission  were  all  against 
Mexico,  and  that  nearly  all  the  claimants  resided  in  the  United  States;  to 


THE  TREATY  IN  THE  SENATE.  635 

put  "Washington"  in  the  place  of  "Mexico."  Hence, 
according  to  Thompson's  statement,  we  may,  with  the  best 
of  reason,  assert,  that  the  senate  did  not  wish  to  permit  the 
treaty  to  be  closed.  It  felt  a  repugnance  to  reject  it  directly, 
since  Mexico  had  granted  everj'thing  material  wliich  had 
been  demanded  by  the  representative  of  the  United  States; 
but  it  amended  it  in  such  a  manner  that  Mexico  could  no 
longer  accept  it.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  senators  were 
wanting  in  foresight.  As  Mexico,  after  all,  probably  yielded 
in  relation  to  the  place,  they  contemplated  a  still  further 
change:  they  struck  out  the  stipulation  in  accordance  ^nth 
which  the  claims  for  damages  of  the  one  state  against  the 
other  Avere  to  be  finally  decided  by  the  commission,  that  is, 
by  the  arbitrator.  The  administration  seems  to  have  entirely 
agreed  to  this  step  of  the  senate,  for  Upshur  expressed  his 
sorrow  to  Thompson  that  a  "strictly  diplomatic"  matter 
should  be  referred  to  a  judicial  tribunal.  But  the  striking 
out  of  this  clause  was  a  very  direct  breach  of  the  treaty  of 
the  30tli  of  January,  1843,  since  it  was  expressly  stii^ulated 
in  the  latter  that  the  claims  of  the  "governments,"  also 
against  each  other,  should  be  settled  by  the  new  convention. 
It  was  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  spirit  whicli  the  admin- 
istration and  the  senate  had  manifested  in  this  whole  matter 
that  Polk  did  not  blush  subsequently  to  charge  Mexico  with 
having  prevented  the  execution  of  article  6  of  the  treaty  of 
the  30th  of  January.^ 

which  they  replied  that  this  commission  will  also  be  charjred  with  the  claims 
of  the  government  and  citizons  of  Mexico  against  the  United  States,  and 
that  tliey  could  not  concede  this  point.  I  thought  there  was  much  reason 
in  their  demand;  and,  as  it  was  matter  of  punctilio,  and  as  with  a  Span- 
iard punctilio  is  everything,  I  was  well  satisfied  it  would  Ix;  a  sire  qua  non, 
and  therefore  yielded  it,  in  consideration  of  their  allowing  me  to  name  the 
arbiter  —  a  much  ofore  important  consideration."  Jay,  Review  of  the 
Mexican  War,  p.  77. 
'  "  In  January,  1844,  this  convention  was  ratified  by  the  senate  of  th» 


636  Jackson's  administbation — annexation  of  texas. 

Concerning  the  motives  of  the  senate  for  its  two  "  reason- 
able "  amendments,  of  course,  nothing  definite  can  be  said, 
and  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  senators,  individually,  were 
determined  by  different  motives.  How  great  the  obstacle 
was  which  so  unexpectedly  checked  the  negotiations  for  an- 
nexation, the  senate  could  not  know.  It  might  be  that  there 
were  veiy  few  senators,  who  enjoyed  in  a  peculiar  manner 
the  confidence  of  the  administration,  informed  both  how  far 
the  executive  had  already  engaged  himself,  and  that  the  ne- 
gotiations had  now  come  to  a  threatening  standstill. 

Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  England  and  France,  there  was 
an  armistice  between  Mexico  and  Texas,^  and  negotiations 
tending  to  a  formal  peace  had  been  begun.^  Texas  had  the 
greatest  interest  in  their  success,  for  although  its  reconquest 
by  Mexico  had  become  exceedingly  improbable,  there  was, 
considering  the  continuance  of  the  barbarous  border  warfare 
carried  on,  no  seeing  when  it  would  be  able  to  work  itself 
out  of  its  mournful  condition.  The  great  majority  of  its 
population  demanded  now,  as  they  had  before,  most  implor- 
ingly, incorporation  with  the  United  States,  but  the  govern- 
ment was  not  so  foolish  and  so  inconsiderate  as  to  sacrifice 
all  that  had  been  already  gained  by  the  mediation  of  the 
European  powers,  and  would,  presumably,  be  gained  in  the 
future,  for  the  indefinite  hope  that  the  Union  would  now 
finally  resolve  upon  annexation.  Yan  Zandt,  tlie  Texan 
charge  d'affaires,  in  Washington,  in  a  letter  of  the  I7th  of 

United  States,  with  two  amendments,  which  were  manifestly  reasonable 
in  their  character.  .  .  .  Mexico  has  thus  violated  a  second  time  the 
laith  of  treaties,  by  faihng  or  refusing  to  carry  into  effect  the  sixth  article 
of  the  convention  of  Januaiy,  1843."  Message  of  Dec.  8,  1846.  Statesm.'s 
Man.,  Ill,  p.  1622. 

*  Houston's  proclamation  of  the  armistice,  June  15,  1843.  Niles,  LXVI, 
p.  251. 

'  The  documents  on  which  the  relation  in  the  text  is  based  are  to  be 
found,  besides  in  the  Senate  Doc.,  in  Niles,  LXVI,  pp.  230  seq.,  in  full. 


MEXICO  AND  ANNEXATION.  637 

January,  1844,  called  Upshur's  attention  to  the  fact  that  a 
treaty  of  annexation  would  drive  Mexico  to  the  immediate 
resumption  of  hostilities,  and  that  it  would  besides  cost 
Texas  the  friendship  of  the  mediating  powers.  He,  there- 
fore, confidentially  inquired  whether,  in  case  the  proposal 
for  annexation  were  accepted  by  the  Texan  executive,  the 
president  would,  even  before  the  ratification  of  the  treaty, 
protect  Texas  by  a  sufficiently  powerful  land  and  maritime 
force  against  all  attacks.^  That  was  a  question  very  full 
of  meaning.  Deprived  of  its  diplomatic  cloak,  it  meant 
simply:  Is  the  president  ready,  in  case  of  need,  to  cast  as 
a  burthen  on  the  United  States,  on  his  own  responsibility, 
as  the  price  of  Texas,  the  war  of  Texas  against  Mexico?  Up- 
shur left  the  letter  unanswered:  he  had  not  the  courage  to 
say  yes,  and  a  no  would  necessarily  have  driven  Texas  com- 
pletely into  the  arms  of  England. 

Murphy  was  made  of  material  too  tough  to  permit  con- 
science, uncalled  for,  to  intermeddle  with  his  policy.  On 
the  14th  of  February,  the  Texan  government  directed  to 
him  the  same  question  which  Yan  Zandt  had  directed  to 
Upshur,  only  making  the  demands  more  precise  and  pointed,' 

'  "  Should  the  president  of  Texas  accede  to  the  proposition  of  annexa- 
tion, would  the  president  of  the  United  States,  after  the  signing  of  the 
treaty,  and  before  it  shall  be  ratified  and  receive  the  final  action  of  the 
other  branches  of  both  governments,  in  case  Texas  should  desire  it,  or  with 
her  consent,  order  such  number  of  the  military  and  naval  forces  of  the 
United  States  to  such  necessary  points  or  places  upon  the  territory  or  bor- 
ders of  Texas  or  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  as  shall  be  suflBcient  to  protect  her 
against  foreign  aggression?" 

* "  If,  therefore,  Gen.  Murphy. will,  on  the  part  of  his  government,  give 
assurances  to  this  that  the  United  States  shall  assume  the  attitude  of  a 
defensive  ally  of  Texas  against  Mexico  —  that  fhe  United  States  will  main- 
tain a  naviil  force  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  subject  to  his  orders,  able  success- 
fully to  oppose  the  marine  of  Mexico,  and  also  a  disiKwable  force  on  our 
eastern  and  northeastern  frontier  of  five  hundred  dragoons,  with  one 
thousand  infantiy  at  some  southern  station  of  the  United  States,  whence 
they  may  be  conveniently  transported  to  our  shores  in  the  event  of  necee- 


638  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

and,  at  the  same  time,  expressing  the  conviction  that  the 
very  fact  of  negotiations  with  the  United  States  would,  of 
itself,  lead  to  a  new  breach  with  Mexico.  On  the  very  same 
day,  Murphy  gave  the  wished  for  assurances  in  the  most 
binding  form.*  Only  in  relation  to  the  demand  that  the 
United  States  should  guarantee  the  independence  of  Texas 
in  case  the  negotiations  fell  through,  did  he  declare  that  he 
did  not  know  what  were  the  intentions  of  his  government. 
He  gave  assurance,  however,  that  Texas  had,  in  no  case,  to 
fear  a  hasty  withdrawal  of  the  protecting  troops.^  This 
satisfied  tlie  Texan  government  also.  The  very  following 
day  (February  15)  it  informed  Murphy  that  J.  P.  Hen- 
derson would  be  sent  to  "Washington  with  unlimited  power 
and  without  delay.  The  triumphant  dispatch  by  which 
Murphy,  on  the  same  day,  informed  Upshur  of  this  fact 
supplements  the  previous  correspondence  in  two  material 
points:  that  the  demands  of  Texas  were  explained  by  its 
complete  defenselessness,  and  that  their  actual  fulfillment 

sity,  the  president  will  have  no  hesitation  in  forthwith  dispatching  a  min- 
ister, with  ample  powers,  to  the  government  of  the  United  States,  to 
coSperate  with  our  minister  now  there  in  negotiating  for  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  In  the  event  of  a  failure  of  the  treaty  of  annexation,  it  is  also 
necessary  that  this  government  should  have  assurance  or  guaranty  of  its 
independence  by  the  United  States." 

'  "  Sir:  I  have  no  hesitation  in  declaring,  on  the  part  of  my  govern- 
ment, that  neither  Mexico  nor  any  other  power  will  be  permitted  to  invade 
Texas  on  account  of  any  negotiation  which  may  take  place  in  relation  to 
any  subject  upon  which  Texas  is  or  may  be  invited  by  the  United  States 
to  negotiate;  that  the  United  States,  having  invited  that  negotiation,  will 
be  a  guaranty  of  their  honor  that  no  evil  shall  result  to  Texas  from  accept- 
ing the  invitation,  and  that  active  measures  will  be  immediately  taken  by 
the  United  States  to  prevent  the  evils  you  seem  to  anticipate  from  this 
source." 

*  "  He  therefore  feels  no  reluctance  in  assuring  Mr.  Jones  thai  the  United 
States  would  not  hastily  withdraw  her  protection,  even  if  the  negotiation 
should  fail  of  its  object;  and  he  conceives  that  the  high  honor  of  his 
country  may  well  be  relied  upon  for  such  protection  to  an  extent  that  shall 
leave  no  just  cause  of  complaint." 


LIEUTENANT   DAVIs's   ORDEB.  639 

appeared  as  a  condition  precedent  to  the  beginning  of  the 
negotiations.*  Although  tlie  ambassador  admitted  that  he 
liad  taken  a  "great  responsibility"  on  himself,  he  believed 
that  he  was  able  to  bear  a  still  greater  one.  On  the  19th  of 
Febrnary,  he  sent  Lieut.  J.  A.  Davis,  the  commander  of  the 
United  States  schooner  "Flirt,"  the  "secret  order"  to  go  to 
Vera  Crnz  without  delay,  and  to  remain  there  with  his  ship 
until  he  had  made  sure  whether  an  expedition  against  Texas 
was  contemplated.  He  was  to  let  the  United  States  men-of- 
war  which  might  be  there  know  that  their  presence  on  the 
route  between  the  Gulf  of  Yera  Cruz •  and  Galveston  was 
"  very  necessary ;"  that  "  soon,  .  .  .  in  all  probability," 
they  would  receive  orders  to  this  effect,  if  such  orders  had 
not  already  reached  them;  and  that  the  United  States  fleet 
would  "be  required  to  prevent"  a  possible  invasion  of 
Texas.  In  the  letter  of  the  22d  of  February,  in  which  he 
notified  Upshur  of  this  new  step,  he  expressed  the  utmost 
confidence,  not  only  that  he  would  see  it  approved,  but  also 
that  he  would  see  an  order  issued  for  the  sendingr  of  a 
larger  fleet  to  the  gulf.  He  hoped  that  the  land  troops, 
which  were  to  be  posted  on  the  border,  would  be  placed 
at  his  discretion.  All  these  steps  were  to  be  justified, 
according  to  his  proposition,  by  the  claim  that  England 
and  the  United  States  were  obligated  to  protect  Texas — 
if  necessary,  even  by  force  —  against  a  breach  of  the  armis- 
tice; since  it  had  proclaimed  it  because  induced  to  do  so  by 

'  "  Bat  inasmuch  as  ...  it  is  clear  to  the  president  of  Texas  .  .  . 
that  the  president  of  Mexico  will  instantly  commence  active  hostilities 
against  Texas,  which  Texas  is  wholly  unprepared,  by  sea  or  land,  to  resist, 
it  is  understood  that  the  government  of  the  United  States,  having  invited 
Texas  to  this  negotiation,  will  at  once,  and  before  any  negotiation  is  set  on 
foot,  place  a  sufficient  naval  force  in  the  gulf  to  protect  the  coast  of  Texas, 
and  hold  a  sufficient  force  of  cavalry,  or  other  description  of  mounted 
troops,  on  the  southwestern  border  of  the  United  States,  in  readiness  to 
protect  or  aid  in  the  protection  of  Texas,  pending  the  proposed  negotiation 
for  annexation." 


640  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  op  texas. 

the  two  powers  named.*  Even  Commodore  Jones  would 
have  been  able  to  learn  many  principles  of  the  law  of  nations, 
which  might  have  been  turned  to  very  great  advantage,  from 
this  skillful  diplomat. 

Murphy  had  closed  his  letter  of  the  22d  of  February 
with  av  urgent  admonition  to  make  haste.'^  There  was,  in- 
deed, no  time  to  lose.  On  the  same  day  on  which  the  send- 
ing of  Henderson  to  Washington  was  resolved  upon,  the 
Mexican  and  Texan  commissioners  in  Sabinas  had  closed  a 
formal  armistice,  which  contemplated  a  peaceable  settle- 
ment until  the  1st  of  May,  18M.  The  Texan  government 
refused  to  ratify  this  convention.  Yan  Zandt  and  Hender- 
son, in  a  letter  to  Calhoun,  subsequently,  gave  as  a  reason 
for  this,  that  Texas  was  described  in  it  as  a  "  department." ' 

'  "  You  will  perceive  it  to  be  our  opinion  that  the  appearance  of  an  im- 
posing force  in  the  gulf  will  check  any  movement  of  Mexico  against  Texas, 
and  it  will  be  far  better  to  check  a  movement  of  hostility  than  to  opjwse 
it,  even  successfully,  after  it  has  moved.  The  first  check  is  not  an  act  of 
open  war.  The  second  is.  Besides,  we  can  allege  that  the  proclamation 
issued  by  the  Texan  government  of  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  without  limit 
of  time,  having  been  induced,  as  understood,  by  the  mediation  of  England 
and  the  United  States,  both  are  bound  in  good  faith  to  take  care  that  no 
violation  of  this  proclamation  be  made  by  either  party  without  the  previous 
notice  required  by  laws  of  nations,  as  well  as  by  the  principles  of  justice 
and  common  sense.  No  such  notice  has  been  given  by  Mexico  to  Texas, 
and  until  it  is  given,  both  England  and  the  United  States  are  bound  in 
good  faith  to  resist  any  sudden  invasion  of  Texas  by  Mexico,  opposing  even 
force  to  force." 

'  "  Dispatch  will  secure  a  peaceable  acquisition  of  this  almost  invaluable 
country.  Delay  may  bring  on  a  war  immensely  expensive  in  blood  and 
treasure,  and  result  iu  the  loss  of  all  sought  to  be  gained." 

*Niles,  LXVI,  p.  252.  The  Sabinas  convention  is  printed  in  full,  ibid., 
pp.  96,  97.  Art.  I  reads:  "  While  the  negotiations  are  being  carried  on 
in  the  capital  of  the  republic  respecting  the  pacification  of  the  depart- 
ment of  Texas,  and  which  shall  be  altogether  concluded  by  the  first  of 
May,  1844,  there  shall  be  an  armistice  between  Mexico  and  Texas,  which 
shall  only  be  prolonged  in  case  there  may  be  a  probability  of  terminating 
the  affairs  pacifically." 


DfFLUENCE  OF  THE  PRINCETON  CATASTEOPHE.     641 

This  was,  certainly,  a  justifiable  criticism  of  great  import- 
ance. But,  as  the  European  powers,  in  their  whole  media- 
tion, had  started  out  with  the  assumption,  that  Mexico 
would  have  to  recognize  the  independence  of  Texas,  it  was 
not  hard  to  look  upon  the  objectionable  expression  as  the 
emanation  of  foolish  Spanish  pride.  But  Texas,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  not  in  a  situation  to  jeopardize  the  essence  for  the 
sake  of  the  appearance.  The  assertion  is  therefore  war- 
ranted, that  it  would,  with  the  assistance  of  England,  have 
endeavored  to  set  aside  or  to  evade  this  difiicuity  in  one  way 
or  another,  if,  in  the  meantime,  it  had  not  received  Mur- 
phy's promises,  which  seemed-  to  leave  no  more  ground 
whatever  for  any  fear  of  a  breach  with  Mexico. 

Wliat  influence  was  the  catastrophe  on  board  the  Prince- 
ton on  the  28th  of  Febrnary  destined  to  exercise  on  the  fate 
of  these  expectations?  During  the  interregnum  in  the  state 
department,  after  Upshur's  death,  an  interregnum  which 
lasted  about  a  month,  there  was  much  less  thorough-going 
energy  still,  in  the  Murphy  sense,  to  be  found  in  the  White 
House.  John  Nelson,  who,  until  Calhoun  assumed  the  office, 
carried  on  its  business,  sent  Murphy,  on  the  11th  of  March, 
an  answer  to  his  dispatch  of  the  22d  of  February,  which 
entirely  disappointed  the  calculations  which  had  been  so 
nicely  made  by  himself  and  the  Texan  government.  The 
ambassador  was,  indeed,  credited  with  having,  on  the  whole, 
rightly  divined  the  manner  in  which  the  great  question 
should  be  treated,  but,  as  regards  the  definite  obligations 
which  he  had  assumed  in  the  name  of  the  government,  he 
was  rouudly  disavowed.  The  reason  for  this  was  very  forci- 
ble: the  constitutional  want  of  power  in  the  president  to 
employ  armed  force  against  a  state  with  which  the  Union 
was  at  peace.  To  Murphy  and  the  Texans,  however,  the 
consolation  was  left,  that  the  president  was  not  "indis- 
posed" to  make  the  desired  disposition  of  the  troops  in 
41 


642  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

order  that  they  might  be  able  to  protect  Texas  at  the  "  prop- 
er time."  ^ 

When  Calhoun,  at  the  end  of  March,  became  the  head  of 
the  cabinet,  the  question  of  annexation  immediately  took  a 
new  turn.  Jackson's  letter  of  the  12th  of  February,  1843, 
to  A.  Y.  Brown,  was  published  in  the  Richmond  Enquirer 
on  the  22d  of  March,  and  dated  1844.  It  is  not  possible  to 
say  whether  this  was  an  intentional  or  an  unintentional  over- 
sight. The  impression,  however,  which  the  letter,  in  conse- 
quence of  this,  made  on  the  masses  was  a  much  more  power- 
ful one,  and  was  not  much  modified  by  the  subsequent 
correction  of  the  mistake.  Public  opinion  was  in  the  best 
of  moods  to  allow  itself  to  be  placed  in  the  desired  state  of 
intoxication  by  the  declamation  of  the  politicians.  The  rep- 
resentatives of  Texas  in  "Washington  only  did  not  allow  them- 
selves to  be  led  by  anything  out  of  their  condition  of  calcu- 
lating sobriety.  All  Calhoun's  general  promises,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Nelson  letter,  remained  entirely  without  effect. 
Yan  Zandt  and  Henderson  stood  by  their  declaration  that 

'  "  Enteratining  these  views,  the  president  is  gratified  to  perceive,  in  the 
course  you  have  pursued  in  your  intercourse  with  the  authorities  of  Texas, 
the  evidences  of  a  cordial  cooperation  in  this  cherished  object  of  his 
policy;  but  instructs  me  to  say,  that  whilst  approving  the  general  tone 
and  tenor  of  that  intercourse,  he  regrets  to  perceive  in  the  pledges  given 
by  you  in  your  communication  to  the  Hon.  Anson  Jones  of  the  14th  of 
February,  that  you  have  suffered  your  zeal  to  carry  you  beyond  the  line  of 
your  instructions,  and  to  commit  the  president  to  measures  for  which  he 
has  no  constitutional  authority  to  stipulate. 

"  The  employment  of  the  army  or  navy  against  a  foreign  power  with 
which  the  United  States  are  at  peace,  is  not  within  the  competency  of  the 
president;  and  whilst  he  is  not  indisposed,  as  a  measure  of  prudent  pre- 
caution and  as  preliminary  to  the  proposed  negotiation,  to  concentrate  in 
the  Gulf  of  :Mexico,  and  on  the  southern  borders  of  the  United  States,  a 
naval  and  military  force  to  be  directed  to  the  defence  of  the  inhabitants 
and  territory  of  Texas,  at  a  proper  time,  he  cannot  permit  the  authorities 
of  that  government  or  yourself  to  labor  under  the  misapprehension  that  he 
has  power  to  employ  them  at  the  period  indicated  by  your  stipulations." 


THE  TKEATY  OF  AliNEXATION  SIGNED.  643 

they  could  not  agree  to  anything  until  they  had  a  written, 
binding  promise.  Calhoun  finally  yielded  with  a  heavy  heart. 
On  the  11th  of  April  he  wrote  to  the  two  plenipotentiaries, 
that  an  order  had  been  issued  to  concentrate  a  powerful 
squadron  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  to  bring  troops  together 
on  the  southwestern  frontier  to  "  meet  any  emergency."  The . 
only  object  he  attained  was  that  it  was  permitted  him  to 
evade  the  greatest  difficulty  by  one  word  which  left  a  possi- 
bility open  to  him,  not,  indeed,  to  justify  the  action  of  the 
administration,  but,  notwithstanding,  to  defend  it  by  dialectic 
subtilties.  Tlie  president,  through  Calhoun,  declared  it  to 
be  his  duty  to  protect  Texas  against  an  invasion  by  all  con- 
stitutional means  so  long  as  the  treaty  of  annexation  was 
pending.^     The  treaty  was  signed  on  the  following  day.^ 

Ten  days  elapsed  before  the  treaty  was  sent  to  the  senate  to 
be  ratified.  Considering  the  impatient  haste  with  which  Cal- 
houn pushed  it  to  a  conclusion,  this  must  have  been  surpris- 
ing. Benton'  seeks  the  explanation  of  this  in. the  intrigues 
carried  on  in  relation  to  the  Baltimore  nominating  conven- 
tion in  connection  with  the  question  of  annexation.  It  is 
said  especially  that  an  article  in  the  Globe^  arguing  in  favor 
of  annexation  with,  fiery  zeal,  caused  great  consternation 
among  the  annexationists  opposed  to  Yan  Buren,  because  the 

'  "  I  am  directed  by  the  president  to  say  that  the  secretary  of  the  navy 
has  been  instructed  to  order  a  strong  naval  force  to  concentrate  in  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  to  meet  any  emergency;  and  that  similar  orders  have  been  issued 
by  the  secretary  of  war  to  move  the  disposable  forces  on  our  southwestern 
frontier  for  the  same  purpose.  Should  the  exigency  arise  to  which  yon 
refer  in  your  note  to  Mr,  Upshur,  I  am  further  directed  by  the  president  to 
say  that,  during  the  pendency  of  the  treaty  of  annexation,  he  would  deem 
it  his  duty  to  use  all  the  means  placed  within  his  power  by  the  oonstitntion 
to  protect  Texas  from  all  foreign  invasion." 

*The  full  text  of  the  treaty  is  printed  in  Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  322-327; 
Niles,  LXVI,  pp.  149,  150,  and  in  many  other  places. 

•Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  588  seq. 


644  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

publisher,  Blair,  was  on  intimate  terms  with  Yan  Buren, 
whose  own  declaration  on  his  attitude  towards  this  question 
had  not  been  yet  made  public.  This  incident,  it  was  said, 
was  the  occasion  of  Calhoun's  correspondence  with  Packen- 
ham,  the  representative  of  England  in  Washington.  On  ac- 
count of  the  correspondence,  the  treaty  lay  ten  days  in  the 
desk  of  the  secretary  of  state;  for  it  was  carried  on  only  for 
the  purpose  of  being  able  to  lay  a  copy  of  it  before  the  sen- 
ate simultaneously  with  the  treaty. 

Leaving  the  two  allegations  of  the  last  sentence  out  of 
consideration,  the  view  is  evidently  incorrect.  Benton  relies 
mainly  on  this,  that  it  was  a  dispatch  of  Lord  Aberdeen  of 
the  i^6th  of  December,  1843,  which  Calhoun's  first  letter  to 
Packenham  answered.  It  is  easy  to  explain,  however,  why 
the  reply  to  the  provocation  was  delayed  so  long.  Benton 
himself  mentions  that  Packenham  did  not  transmit  a  copy 
of  Aberdeen's  letter  until  the  26th  of  February,  Two  days 
after  this,  Uphsur  died,  and  Nelson's  provisional  term  lasted 
until  the  end  of  March.  Calhoun,  therefore,  delayed  the  an- 
swer only  about  three  weeks,  and  its  contents  evidently  made 
it  impossible  for  him  to  communicate  it  before  the  conclusion 
of  the  treaty  of  annexation. 

More  important  is  the  coloring  which  Benton,  with  a  cer- 
tain purpose  and  against  his  better  knowledge,  gives  to  his 
representation  of  the  material  contents  of  the  correspondence. 
He  would  make  the  reader  believe  that  Aberdeen  had,  un- 
conditionally, repelled  the  insinuation  that  England  had 
wished  to  presume  to  exercise  an  influence  on  the  United 
States  or  Texas,  in  any  form,  in  relation  to  the  slavery  ques- 
tion. It  was  pure  awkwardness  in  the  noble  lord  to  have 
added,  in  this  connection,  an  entirely  objectless  abstract  dec- 
laration concerning  England's  attitude  towards  slavery.  This 
blunder,  Calhoun,  it  was  said,  turned  to  account  by  dwelling, 
with  all  his  power,  on  the  abstraction,  which  had  nothing  to 


brougham's   INTEEPELX.ATIOK.  645 

do  with  the  matter,  and  leaving  the  real  question  entirely 
unconsidered.^ 

But  such  was  not,  by  any  means,  the  state  of  the  affair. 
True,  the  annexationists  looked  at  every  thing  that  England 
did  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  through  an  im- 
mense magnifying  glass;  but  that  England  did  nothing  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  that  she  confined  herself  en- 
tirely to  fruitless  philanthropic  wishes,  is  not  true.  Lord 
Brougham  had,  in  an  interpellation  of  the  18th  of  August. 
1843,  on  the  relations  to  Texas,  expresse  1  in  a  very  em- 
phatic manner  the  wish  that  England  might  do  all  in  iier 
power  to  effoct  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas.  He,  at  the 
same  time,  pointed  out  that  the  recognition  of  its  independ- 
ence by  Mexico  might  be  used  as  a  lever,  and  pointedly  re- 
marked that  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  would  neces- 
sarily lead  ultimately  to  its  abolition  in  the  United  States 

'  "  It  so  happened  that  Lord  Aberdeen  —  after  the  fullest  contradiction 
of  the  imputed  design,  and  the  strongest  assurances  of  non-interference 
with  any  slavery  policy  either  of  the  United  States  or  of  Texas  —  did  not 
etop  there;  but,  like  many  able  men  who  are  not  fuUy  aware  of  the  virtue 
of  stopping  when  they  are  done,  went  on  to  add  something  more,  of  no 
necessary  connection  or  practical  application  to  the  subject  —  a  mere  gen- 
eral abstract  declaration  on  the  subject  of  slavery;  on  which  Mr.  Calhoun 
took  position,  and  erected  a  superstructure  of  aJann  which  did  more  to  em- 
ban-ass  the  opponents  of  the  treaty  and  to  inflame  the  country  than  ah 
other  matters  put  together.  This  cause  for  this  new  alarm  was  found  in 
the  superfluous  declaration  '  that  Great  Britain  desires,  and  is  constantly 
exerting  herself  to  procure  the  general  aboUtion  of  slavery  throughout  the 
world.'  This  general  declaration,  although  preceded  and  followed  by  reit- 
erated assurances  of  non-interference  with  slavery  in  the  United  States, 
and  no  desire  for  any  dominant  influence  in  Texas,  were  seized  upon  as  an 
open  avowal  of  a  design  to  abolish  slavery  everywhere.  These  assurances 
were  all  disregarded.  Our  secretary  established  himself  upon  the  naked 
declaration,  stripped  of  all  qualifications  and  denials.  He  saw  in  them  the 
means  of  making  to  a  northern  man  [Mr.  Van  Buren]  just  as  perilous  the 
support  as  the  opposition  of  immediate  annexation."  Thirty  Years'  View, 
II,  p.  589. 


Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

also.^  Lord  Aberdeen  had  refused,  in  liis  answer,  to  enter 
into  details,  in  any  manner,  but  he  had  given  the  general 
assurance  that  the  government  was  doing,  and  would  do, 
everything  to  fulfill  the  wishes  expressed.^  "When  Everett 
interpelled  him  on  the  subject,  by  order  of  his  government, 
he  determinedly  repelled  only  the  supposition  that  England 
intended  to  operate  through  Texas  indirectly  against  the  slave- 
holding  interest  in  the  Union.'     Whether  his  declaration 

' "  This  made  him  irresistibly  anxious  for  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in 
Texas;  for  if  it  were  abolished  there,  not  only  would  that  country  be  culti- 
vated by  free  and  white  labor,  but  it  would  put  a  stop  to  the  habit  of 
breeding  slaves  for  the  Texan  market;  the  consequence  would  be  that 
they  would  solve  this  great  question  in  the  history  of  the  United  States, 
for  it  must  ultimately  end  in  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in  America.  He 
therefore  looked  forward  most  anxiously  to  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in 
Texas,  as  he  was  convinced  that  it  would  ultimately  end  in  the  abohtion  of 
slavery  throughout  the  whole  of  America.  He  knew  that  the  Texans  would 
do  much,  as  regarded  the  abohtion  of  slavery,  if  Mexico  could  be  induced 
to  recognize  their  independence.  If,  therefore,  by  our  good  ofBces,  we 
could  get  the  Mexican  government  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of 
Texas,  he  would  suggest  a  hope  it  might  terminate  in  the  abohtion  of 
slavery  in  Texas,  and  ultimately  the  whole  of  the  southern  states  of 
America.  .  .  .  He  trusted  that  the  government  would  not  lose  any 
opportunity  of  pressing  the  subject,  whenever  they  could  do  so  with  a  hope 
or  (?  of)  success."  Upshur  to  Everett,  September  28, 1843,  after  the  report 
of  the  London  "Morning  Chronicle."    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  167. 

'  "  He  was  sure  that  he  need  hardly  say  that  no  one  was  more  anxious 
than  himself  to  see  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas;  and  if  he  could  not 
consent  to  produce  papers,  or  to  give  further  information,  it  did  not  arise 
from  indifference,  but  from  quite  a  contrary  reason.  .  .  .  But  he  could 
assure  his  noble  friend  that  by  means  of  urging  the  negotiations,  as  well 
as  by  every  other  means  in  their  power,  her  majesty's  ministers  would  presd 
this  matter."    1.  c. 

*  Everett  to  Upshur,  November  3,  1843:  "  I  observed  that  it  [the  dia- 
logue between  him  and  Brougham]  was  capable  of  being  interpreted  as  a 
declaration  on  his  part  that  her  majesty's  government  were  engaged  in 
negotiations  with  Mexico  for  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in  Texas,  not  so  much 
for  the  sake  of  effecting  that  object  in  Texas  as  in  the  United  States.  Lord 
Aberdeen  said  that  Lord  Brougham,  in  avowing  his  entu-e  satisfaction  with 
his  [Lord  Aberdeen's]  explanation,  could  only  have  referred  to  the  matter 


England's  position.  647 

that  the  United  States  had  not  the  slightest  cause  for  dis- 
quietude was  of  any  value  depended,  of  course,  on  the  ques- 
tion, how  sensitive  the  slave-holding  interest  was  considered; 
and,  on  this  question,  his  lordiihip  and  the  slave-holders 
held  very  different  opinions. 

An  oral  witness  had  told  the  representative  of  Texas  in 
London  that  the  deputation  of  an  abolitionist  meeting  had 
been  promised  by  Lord  Aberdeen  that  the  interest  of  a  loan 
which,  according  to  Andrews's  plan,  was  to  be  taken  in  behalf 
of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas,  would  be  guaranteed. 
This  assertion  falls  to  the  ground  in  view  of  the  express  dec- 
laration of  the  minister  that  he  had  not  given  the  proposi- 
tion the  least  encouragement.^  Just  as  untenable  are  all  the 
assertions  to  the  eflEect  that  England  had  made  the  recognition 
of  the  independence  of  Texas,  on  the  part  of  Mexico,  depend- 
ent on  the  abolition  of  slavery;  and  the  administration  in 
Washington  was  informed  of  this  by  a  dispatch  of  its  ambas- 
sador of  the  3d  of  November.  England's  action  in  this 
question  was  confined  to  the  recommendation  made  to  Mex- 
ico,^ to  employ  the  recognition  of  Texas'  independence — on 
which  it  should  be  determined  under  all  circumstances  —  to 
induce  Texas  to  abolish  slavery.    England,  therefore,  did  not 

which  was  the  direct  object  of  inquiry,  viz:  The  negotiations  with  Mexico 
for  the  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Texas,  and  the  earnest  hope 
that  the  aboUtion  of  slavery  might  be  eftected  by  such  an  arrangement; 
.  .  .  that  I  might  be  perfectly  satisfied  that  England  had  nothing  in 
view  in  reference  to  Texas,  which  ought,  in  the  shghtest  degree,  to  cause 
uneasiness  in  the  United  States."    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  169. 

»  "  .  ,  .  that  he  had  given  them  no  countenance  whatever;  he  had 
informed  them  that,  by  every  proper  means  of  influence,  he  would  enconr* 
age  the  aboUtion  of  slavery,  and  that  he  had  recommended  the  Mexican 
government  to  interest  itself  in  the  matter."  1.  c  It  has  already  been 
said  that  Ashbel  Smith  himself,  in  1875,  declared  the  compkints  of  Cal- 
houn against  the  English  cabinet  entirely  groundless. 

«  "  But  Lord  Aberdeen  added,  that  he  could  not  say  that  this  recommen- 
dation had  been  listened  to  with  any  degree  of  favor."    L  c 


648  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

permit  herself  to  be  satisfied  with  pious  wishes,  but,  as  Lord 
Aberdeen  unreservedly  granted,  in  his  letter  of  the  2Gth  of 
December,  she  gave  her  advice  and  made  use  of  her  influence 
in  the  interest  of  universal  emancipation;  but  she  had  exerted 
no  pressure  to  attain  this  end,  to  say  nothing  of  its  having 
occurred  to  her  to  impose  material  burthens  of  any  kind  upon 
herself  to  see  her  wish  realized  in  Texas.^ 

What  now  did  Calhoun  make  out  of  this  state  of  facts? 

*  "  .  .  .  we  have  put  ourselves  forward  in  pressing  the  government 
'of  Mexico  to  acknowledge  Texas  as  independent.  But  in  thus  acting  we 
have  no  occult  design,  either  with  reference  to  any  peculiar  influence  which 
we  might  seek  to  establish  in  Mexico  or  in  Texas,  or  even  with  reference 
to  the  slavery  which  now  exists,  and  which  we  desire  to  see  abohshed  in 
Texas. 

"  With  regard  to  the  latter  point,  it  must  be  and  is  well  known,  both  to 
the  United  States  and  to  the  whole  world,  that  Great  Britain  desires,  and 
is  constantly  exerting  herself  to  procure,  the  general  abolition  of  slavery 
throughout  the  world.  But  the  means  which  she  has  adopted,  and  wiU 
continue  to  adopt,  for  this  humane  and  virtuous  purpose,  are  open  and  un- 
disguised. She  will  do  nothing  secretly  or  underhand.  She  desires  that 
her  motives  may  be  generally  understood,  and  her  acts  seen  by  all. 

"  With  regard  to  Texas,  we  avow  that  we  wish  to  see  slavery  abolished 
there,  as  elsewhere;  and  we  should  rejoice  if  the  recognition  of  that  coim- 
try  by  the  Mexican  government  should  be  accompanied  by  an  engagement 
on  the  part  of  Texas  to  abolish  slavery  eventually,  and  under  proper  con- 
ditions, throughout  the  republic.  But  although  we  earnestly  desire  and 
feel  it  to  be  our  duty  to  promote  such  a  consummation,  we  shall  not  inter- 
fere unduly,  or  with  an  improper  assumption  of  authority,  with  either 
party,  in  order  to  insure  the  adoption  of  such  a  course.  We  shall  counsel, 
but  we  shall  not  seek  to  compel,  or  unduly  control,  either  party. 

"...  she  [Great  Britain]  has  no  thought  or  intention  of  seeking  to 
act  directly  or  indirectly,  in  a  poUtical  sense,  on  the  United  States  through 
Texas. 

"...  the  governments  of  the  slaveholding  states  may  be  assured 
that,  although  we  shall  not  desist  from  those  open  and  honest  efforts  which 
we  have  constantly  made  for  procuring  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout 
the  world,  we  shall  neither  openly  nor  secretly  resort  to  any  measures 
which  can  tend  to  disturb  their  internal  tranquillity,  orthereby  to  affect  the 
prosperity  of  the  American  Union."  The  whole  so-called  Packenham  cor- 
respondence is  printed  also  in  Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  330  seq. 


Calhoun's  evasiveness.  C49 

Who  can  accurately  determine  how  far  a  diplomat  and  states- 
man may  exceed  the  limits  which  truth  and  honor  place  to 
the  employment  of  sophistical  dialectics  in  private  life,  in 
order  to  realize  his  views  on  the  demands  of  the  interests  of 
the  state?  But,  verily,  one  need  not  be  a  narrow-minded 
moralist  to  say  that  Calhoun,  in  this  case,  went  altogether 
too  far  beyond  them. 

Calhoun  starts  out  with  the  serious  alarm  caused  the 
president  by  the  admission  that  England  was  laboring  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  entire  world.  Natui*ally 
enough,  the  secretary  of  state  did  not  wish  to  make  himself 
and  the  president  a  laughing  stock,  by  the  pretext  which 
they  now  hit  upon  for  the  first  time,  but  which  the  birds  on 
every  house-top  had  been  chirping  for  years.  In  his  opin- 
ion, the  reader  should,  it  was  plain,  seek  the  explanation  of 
the  sudden  anxiety  in  this,  that  the  fact  with  which  all  the 
world  was  familiar,  was  now,  "  for  the  first  time,"  avowed  in 
an  official  document,  in  express  terms.  But  why  this  should 
be  so  very  important  it  is  not  possible  to  discover,  and  Cal- 
houn takes  care  not  to  say  the  least  word  about  it.  With 
bold  evasiveness,  he  carries  on  his  argument  as  if  the  slave- 
holding  states  of  the  world  had,  by  this  means,  for  the  first 
time,  obtained  information  of  the  fact  which  had  made  itself 
felt  in  the  United  States,  in  many  ways,  and  which  had  re- 
peatedly led  to  serious  differences  between  the  two  nations.* 

'  "  .  .  .  The  president  ...  at  the  same  time  regards  with  deep 
concern  the  avowal,  for  the  first  time  made  to  this  government,  'that 
Great  Britain  desires  and  is  constantly  exerting  herself  to  procure  the  gen- 
eral abolition  of  slavery  throughout  the  world.' 

"  So  long  a.s  Great  Britain  confined  herself  to  the  abohtion  of  slavery  in 
her  own  possessions  and  colonies,  no  other  country  had  a  right  to  complain. 
It  belbnged  to  her  exclusively  to  determine,  according  to  her  own  views  of 
policy,  whether  it  should  be  done  or  not.  But  when  she  goes  beyond,  and 
avows  it  as  her  settled  policy,  and  the  object  of  her  constant  exertions,  to 
abolish  it  throughout  the  world,  she  makes  it  the  duty  of  all  other  coun- 


650  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

The  ultimate  source  of  all  these  differences  was  England's 
conviction  of  the  immorality  and  perniciousness  of  slavery, 
and  her  endeavor,  prompted  by  this  conviction,  to  put  obsta- 
cles in  its  way  wherever  an  opportunity  offered.  And  Lord 
Aberdeen's  declaration  affirmed  nothing  more  than  that  Eng- 
land would  act  in  the  very  same  way  in  future.  That  decla- 
ration referred  to  no  concrete  measures  whatever,  but  only 
designated  the  general  tendency  of  English  pojicy ;  and  there 
was  no  change  in  the  latter  nor  even  an  intensification  of  it 
contemplated,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  expressly  said 
that  it  was  to  remain  unaltered.  And  how  could  it  have 
been  otherwise,  since  Lord  Aberdeen's  dispatch  had  no  object 
but  to  exercise  a  quieting  influence  on  the  United  States? 

The  public  was  put  in  the  right  mood  by  the  cry  of  "  fire." 
Now  it  was  possible  to  convince  that  same  public  that  a 
spark  was  a  flaming  fire. 

Still  greater  solicitude,  Calhoun  continued,  was  caused 
to  the  president  by  the  admission  that  England  desired  the 
abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas,  and  that  she  was  trying  to  de- 
termi  ne  Mexico  to  connect  its  recognition  of  Texan  independ- 
ence with  this  condition.  This  admission  had  made  it  the 
duty  of  the  president  to  examine  the  consequences  which  the 
realization  of  this  wish  would  have  for  the  United  States,  and 
he  had  become  convinced  that  the  government  of  the  Union 
would  have  to  prevent  it  by  the  most  effectual  measures.* 

tries,  whose  safety  or  prosperity  may  be  endangered  by  her  poUcy,  to  adopt 
such  measures  as  they  may  deem  necessary  for  their  protection." 

* "  It  is  with  still  deeper  concern  the  president  regards  the  avowal  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  of  the  desire  of  Great  Britain  to  see  slavery  abolished  in 
Texas,  and,  as  he  infers,  is  endeavoring,  through  her  diplomacy,  to  accom- 
pUsh  it,  by  making  the  abolition  of  slavery  one  of  the  conditions  on  which 
Mexico  should  acknowledge  her  independence.  It  has  confirmed  hia  pre- 
vious impressions  as  to  the  policy  of  Great  Britain  in  reference  to  Texas, 
and  made  it  his  duty  to  examine  with  much  care  and  solicitude  what  would 
be  its  effects  on  the  prosperity  and  safety  of  the  United  States,  should  she 
succeed  in  her  endeavors.    .     .    .    It  is  felt  to  be  the  imperious  duty  of 


CALHOUN   ON    ANNEXATION.  651 

Now  Aberdeen's  letter  said  notliiuff  that  was  new  on  Eng- 
land's  attitude  towai-d  slavery  in  Texas.  If  Tyler  had  before- 
hand only  "  impressions  "  in  relation  to  it,  he  could  have 
nothing  more  now.  Lord  Aberdeen  had  told  Everett  pre- 
viously, precisely  what  he  wrote  now,  and  Everett  had  in- 
formed his  government  of  it,  on  the  3d  of  November,  in 
almost  the  same  words.  Hence,  either  Tyler  was  not,  for  the 
first  time,  induced  by  Aberdeen's  letter  to  make  his  weighty 
reflections,  or  he  had  needed  months  to  recognize  that 
England's  policy  made  these  reflections  liis  duty. 

Calhoun  then  announced  that  the  incorporation  of  Texas 
into  the  Union  was  the  most  effectual  measure,  and  that,  there- 
fore, a  treaty  of  annexation  bad  been  closed.  Hence,  Texas 
had  to  be  annexed  in  consequence  of  Lord  Aberdeen's  letter. 
The  United  States  were  not  responsible  for  the  circumstances 
which  made  it  a  duty  of  self-preservation  to  accede  at  last  to  the 
wishes  of  Texas  for  annexation.  To  confirm  the  truth  of  this 
assertion,  the  secretary  of  state  says  that  the  United  States 
had  done  nothino:  to  brinof  about  the  severance  of  Texas  from 
Mexico,  and  that  they  had  remained  passive  until  England 
had  forced  them  to  take  action  by  her  policy.^     These  asser- 

the  Federal  government,  tiie  common  representative  and  protector  of  the 
states  of  the  Union,  to  adopt,  in  self-defense,  the  most  effectual  measures 
to  defeat  it." 

*  "  To  hazard  consequences  which  would  be  so  dangerous  to  the  pros- 
perity and  safety  of  this  Union,  without  resorting  to  the  most  effective 
measures  to  prevent  them,  would  be,  on  the  part  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment, an  abandonment  of  the  most  solenm  obUgation  imposed  by  the 
guaranty  which  the  states,  in  adopting  the  constitution,  entered  into  to 
protect  edch  other  iigainst  whatever  might  endanger  their  safety,  whether 
from  without  or  within.  Acting  in  obedience  to  this  oUigation,  on  which 
our  federal  system  of  government  rests,  the  president  directs  me  to  inform 
you  that  a  treaty  has  been  concluded  between  the  United  States  and  Texas, 
for  the  annexation  of  the  latter  to  the  former  as  a  part  of  its  territory, 
which  will  be  submitted  without  delay  to  the  senate,  for  its  approval.  This 
step  has  been  taken  as  the  most  effectual,  if  not  the  only  means  of  guard- 


652  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tions  need  no  commentary  after  the  documentary  history  of 
the  question  of  annexation  has  been  told.  Calhoun  might 
boast  of  having  effected  the  annexation.  His  is  also  the  fame 
of  having  crowned  all  the  underhand  dealing,  all  the  fraud 
and  falsehood  which  characterized  this  job,  from  the  begin- 
ning, with  a  conscious  lie  than  which  a  more  shameless  or 
monstrous  one  never  came  from  the  mouth  of  a  diplomatist.* 
But  there  was  an  incontestable  truth  bound  up  with  the 
lie,  and  if  the  political  moral  code  of  certain  people  per- 
mitted them  to  come  to  terras  with  the  latter,  by  means  of 
the  principle:  one  should  not  make  much  ado  about  a  pre- 
text, for  when  a  person  has  not  a  good  one,  he  must  make 
use  of  a  bad  one  —  the  former  could  not  be  gotten  rid  of  by 
any  sophistry  or  by  any  morality,  no  matter  how  pliant, 
and  the  fate  of  the  republic  was  bound  up  with  it.  It  was 
no  lie  that  the  policy  of  England  sent  the  blood  with  force 
to  the  brain  of  this  most  gifted  representative  of  the  slav'o- 
cratic  instincts,  and  that  he  was  most  deeply  convinced,  yea, 

ing  against  the  threatened  danger,  and  securing  their  permanent  peace  and 
welfare.  .  ..  .  The  United  Stales  have  heretofore  declined  to  meet 
her  [Texas']  wishes;  but  the  time  has  now  arrived  when  they  can  no  longer 
refuse,  consistently  with  their  own  security  and  peace,  and  the  sacred  obU- 
gation  imposed  by  their  constitutional  compact  for  mutual  defense  and 
protection.  Nor  are  they  any  way  responsible  for  the  circumstances  which 
have  imposed  this  obUgation  on  them.  They  had  no  agency  in  bringing 
about  the  state  of  things  which  had  terminated  in  the  separation  of  Texas 
from  Mexico.  .  .  .  They  are  equally  without  responsibility  for  that 
state  of  things  already  adverted  to  as  the  immediate  cause  of  imposing  on 
them,  in  self-defense,  the  obligation  of  adopting  the  measures  they  have. 
They  remained  passive  so  long  as  the  policy  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain, 
which  has  led  to  its  adoption,  had  no  immediate  bearing  on  their  peac« 
and  safety." 

'  Let  only  the  following  dates  be  borne  in  mind:  On  the  23d  of  May, 
1836,  the  same  Calhoun  had  declared  in  the  senate  annexation  to  be  neces- 
sary; on  the  16th  of  October,  1S43,  Upshur  made  the  formal  proposition  or 
annexation ;  on  the  26th  of  December,  1843,  Lord  Aberdeen  wrote  his  dis- 
patch, and  on  the  26th  of  February,  IBM,  Packenham  sent  a  copy  of  it  to 
Upshur. 


SLAVEKY  IN  TEXAS  AKD  THE  UNION.  653 

that  it  was  to  him  a  palpable  fact  —  that  this  policy  placed 
the  slavocracj  before  the  decisive  alternative,  and  that  pro- 
crastination was  inevitable  ruin.  Calhoun  had  recognized, 
and  he  confessed,  that  England  did  not  need  to  go  a  step 
beyond  the  line  designated  in  Lord  Aberdeen's  letter,  to 
make  slavery  in  Texas  impossible,  in  case  it  remained  inde- 
pendent; and  he  had  recognized  and  he  confessed,  that  a 
Texas  without  slavery  and  the  permanent  continuance  of 
slavery  in  the  Union,  were  irreconcilable.^  If  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  slavocracy  contested  this,  not  only  were  they  in 
error,  but  they  were  guilty  of  a  piece  of  folly,  since  herein 
lay  the  most  destructive  judgment  which  could  be  passed  on 

'  "  The  investigation  has  resulted  in  the  settled  conviction  that  it  would 
be  difficult  for  Texas,  in  her  actual  condition,  to  resist  what  she  [Great 
Britainl  desires,  without  supposing  the  influence  and  exertions  of  Great 
Britain  would  be  extended  beyond  the  limits  assigned  by  Lord  Aberdeen; 
and  this,  if  Texas  could  not  resist  the  consummation  of  the  object  of  her 
desire,  would  endanger  both  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  Union.    .    . 

"  It  is  sufficient  to  say,  that  the  consummation  of  the  avowed  object  of 
her  wishes  in  reference  to  Texas  would  be  followed  by  hostile  feelings  and 
relations  between  that  country  and  the  United  States,  which  could  not  fail 
to  place  her  under  the  influence  and  control  of  Great  Britain.  This,  from 
the  geographical  position  of  Texas,  would  expose  the  weakest  and  most 
vulnerable  portion  of  our  frontier  to  inroads,  and  place  in  the  power  of 
Great  Britain  the  most  efficient  means  of  effecting  in  the  neighboring 
states  of  this  Union  what  she  avows  to  be  her  desire  to  do  in  all  countries 
where  slavery  exists." 

■  Tyler  says  the  same  thing  in  his  message  of  the  22d  of  April,  in  differ- 
ent words:  "  Least  of  all,  was  it  [the  executive]  ignorant  of  the  anxiety 
of  other  powei-s  to  induce  Mexico  to  enter  into  terms  of  reconciliation  with 
Texas,  which,  affecting  the  domestic  institutions  of  Texas,  would  operate 
most  injuriously  upon  the  United  States,  and  might  most  seriously  threaten 
the  existence  of  this  happy  Union 

"  I  repeat,  the  executive  saw  Texas  in  a  state  of  almost  hopeless  exhaus- 
tion, and  the  question  was  narrowed  down  to  the  simple  proposition, 
whether  the  United  States  should  accept  the  boon  of  annexation  on  fair 
and  liberal  terms,  or,  by  refusing  to  do  so,  force  Texas  to  seek  a  refuge  in 
the  arms  of  some  other  power,"    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1465,  1466. 


654  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas, 

slavery.  The  slavocracj  itself  declared  that  there  existed, 
between  it  and  liberty,  a  conflict  of  principle  so  irreconcila- 
ble that  it  was  placed  before  the  question  of  life  or  death, 
by  the  simple  fact  of  the  neighborhood  of  independent  states, 
in  which  slavery  did  not  exist.  Did  it  not  follow  directly 
fi'om  this,  that  its  political  connection  with  free  states  was 
possible  only  on  the  supposition  of  the  complete  bondage  of 
the  latter?  Could  there  be  a  more  forcible  proof  of  this 
afforded,  than  the  demand  which  the  slavocracy  now  made, 
in  consequence  of  that  fact?  The  slavocracy  was  an  interest 
possessed  of  rights  under  the  constitution  —  it  was  threat- 
ened—  it  demanded  protection  —  and  effectual  protection 
could  be  afforded  it  only  by  the  prevention,  by  the  Union, 
of  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas.  This  is  the  immense 
meaning  of  the  first  letter  to  Packenham.  It  was  not  only 
a  fact  that  Texas  was  to  be  annexed  to  make  the  continued  ex- 
istence of  slavery  possible  there,  but  the  fact  was  officially  de- 
clared before  the  whole  world,  by  the  executive  of  the  Union. 
Slavery  in  the  states  was  —  there  was  only  one  man,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  in  the  whole  nation  who  contested  it  —  with- 
drawn from  all  legislative  action  of  the  general  government, 
but  it  was  "the  sacred  duty"  of  the  Union  to  prevent 
the   abolition    of   slavery   in    the   neighboring  countries.* 

'  There  were  influential  politicians  who  even  vindicated  for  the  south  the 
right  to  prevent  the  abolition  of  slavery,  by  force,  even  if  Texas  should  re- 
solve OB  it,  free  from  all  foreign  influence.  Governor  Troup,  of  Georgia, 
writes  on  the  3d  of  June,  1844:  "  The  slavery  question  has  reached  its 
crisis.    .    .    . 

"  If  Texas  had  her  acknowledged  sovereignty  and  jurisdiction  and  rights 
of  property  —  absolved  from  all  connection  with  Mexico,  and  were  to  pre- 
sume to  do,  in  relation  to  slavery,  what  England  would  persuade  her  to 
do,  and  what  Mexico  would  force  her  to  do — the  entire  of  the  southern 
states  (if  one  community),  would  have  a  right,  by  the  law  of  nations,  as  a 
measure  of  safety,  to  protest  against  any  such  doing,  and  to  follow  up  that 
protest  by  acts  of  war  and  reprisal  —  having  justifiable  cause  of  war  in  self 
defense.     1  say,  admitting  Texas  to  be  among  the  most  independent  of 


THE  NATIONALIZATION  OF  SLAVEET.  65.") 

It  had  to  do  it  bj  the  most  "  effectual  means,"  that  is,  to 
prevent  the  breaking  of  the  chain  it  wonld  have  to  add  that 
very  chain  to  the  others  which  already  bound  its  arms.  The 
letter  to  Packenham  was  the  oflBcial  proclamation  of  the 
"  nationalization "  of  6laver3\  The  annexation  of  Texas 
would  be  the  nation's  sanction  of  this  nationalization.  It 
should  not,  without  any  more  ado,  be  inferred  from  the  fact 
of  annexation  that  the  nation  approved  all  the  views  on 
slavery  expressed  by  Calhoun  in  the  letter  to  Packenham, 
although  it  was  certainly  very  significant,  that  the  secretary 
of  state  ventured,  in  an  official  letter,  that  is,  in  the  name  of 
the  federal  executive,  to  give  venl  to  his  opinions,  broadly 
and  emphatically,  on  the  blessings  of  slavery;  *  but  annexa- 

nations,  and  having  snpreme  control  over  her  slave  population,  Texas 
would  still  be  subject  to  the  same  limitation  and  restriction  in  her  use  and 
control  of  that  population,  as  all  states  and  individuals  would  be  by  law  of 
nature  and  nations,  viz:  so  to  control  and  use  that  population,  as  not  to 
interfere  with  the  .rights  of  her  neighbors — especially  the  rights  which 
appertain  to  the  same  description  of  population.  If  Texqs,  following  the 
example  of  Mexico,  were  to  pass  an  act  of  emancipation,  well  knowing 
that  the  same  population  would  instantaneously  cross  the  line  to  poison 
and  corrupt  and  incite  their  own  color  to  cut  the  throats  of  the  women  and 
children  on  this  side,  no  doubt  coftld  be  entertained  by  the  strictest  casuist 
of  the  right  of  the  southern  states  (the  Federal  government  refusing  its  aid), 
to  protect  themselves  by  all  the  means  in  their  power  as  a  case  of  immi- 
nent ■peril,  and  one  not  admitting  of  delay."  Niles,  LXVI,  pp.  327,  328. 
'  "  He  [the  undersignedl  does  not^  however,  deem  it  irrelevant  to  state 
that,  if  the  experience  of  more  than  half  a  century  is  to  decide,  it  would 
be  neither  humane  nor  wise  in  them  to  change  their  policy.  The  census 
and  other  authentic  documents  show  that,  in  all  instances  in  which  the 
states  have  changed  the  former  relation  between  the  two  races,  the  condi- 
tion of  the  African,  instead  of  being  improved,  has  become  worse.  They 
have  been  invariably  sunk  into  vice  and  pauperism,  accompanied  by  the 
bodily  and  mental  inflictions  incident  thereto  —  deafness,  blmdness,  insan- 
ity and  idiocy  —  to  a  degree  without  example;  while,  in  all  other  states 
which  have  retained  the  ancient  relation  between  them,  they  have  improved 
in  every  respect — in  number,  comfort,  intelligence  and  morals.  .  .  . 
On  the  other  hand,  the  census  and  other  authentic  sources  of  information 


656    JACKSON*S  ADM1NTSTEA.TI0N ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS. 

tion  was,  incontestablj,  tlie  actual  assumption  of  the  alleged 
obligation,  to  go  so  far  even  as  to  engage  in  slavery-propa- 

establish  the  fact  that  the  condition  of  the  African  race  throughout  all  the 
states,  where  the  ancient  relation  between  the  two  has  been  retained,  en- 
joys a  degree  of  health  and  comfort  which  may  well  compare  with  that  of 
the  laboring  population  of  any  country  in  Christendom;  and  it  may  be 
added,  that  in  no  other  condition,  or  in  any  other  age  or  country,  has  the 
negro  race  ever  attained  so  high  an  elevation  in  morals,  intelUgence  or 
civilization.  ,  .  .  Experience  has  proved  that  the  existing  relation,  in 
which  the  one  is  subject  to  the  other,  in  the  slaveholding  states,  is  consistent 
with  the  peace  and  safety  of  both,  with  great  improvement  to  the  inferior; 
while  the  same  experience  proves  that  the  relation  which  it  is  the  desire 
and  object  of  Great  Britain  to  substitute  in  its  st^ead  in  this  and  all  other 
countries,  imder  the  plausible  name  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  would  (if 
it  did  not  destroy  the  inferior  by  conflicts,  to  which  it  would  lead)  reduce 
it  to  the  extremes  of  vice  and  wretchedness."  It  is  interesting  to  hear  the 
judgment  of  the  ultra- democratic  "  Democratic  Review  "  (Jan.,  1845,  p.  8) 
on  the  Packenham  correspondence,  and  especially  on  these  utterances,  and 
this  all  the  more  because  that  periodical  strongly  advocated  immediate 
annexation,  and  said  in  the  same  ai-ticle,  of  its  own  attitude  towards  Cal- 
houn: "For  us  to  declare  our  exalted  admiration, •  respect,  and  even 
attachment,  for  Mr.  Calhoun  would  be  superfluous  enough,  after  the  evi- 
dences of  it  with  which  former  pages  of  this  'Review'  have  abounded." 
The  "  Review  "  says:  "  What  has  become  of  the  southern  doctrine,  what 
of  the  northern  democratic  position,  that  the  institution  of  slavery,  whether 
a  good  or  an  evil,  was  a  local  and  not  a  'national,  a  municipal  and  not  a 
federal  institution,  with  which  the  free  states  had  nothing  to  do,  for  which 
they  were  in  nowise  responsible,  either  to  their  own  conscience  or  to  the 
judgment  of  the  world,  even  though  it  existed  on  the  common  ground  of  the 
District  of  Columbia?  What  has  become  of  this  position,  after  a  southern 
president  and  a  southern  secretary  of  state,  and  that  secretary  John  C.  Cal- 
houn, of  all  men  living,  have  so  nationalized,  so  federalized,  the  question, 
as  we  have  lately  seen  done?  When  that  has  not  only  been  acted  upon, 
but  avowed,  argued,  vehemently  urged — that,  and  that  almost  exclu- 
sively—  as  the  ground  for  a  large  and  momentous  measiure  of  national 
policy;  involving  the  annexation  of  territory  enough  for  a  kingdom;  the 
assumption  of  at  least  a  menaced  war;  a  war  possibly  to  be  backed  by 
England;  in  an  unascertained  condition  of  the  public  sentiment  of  our 
country;  in  certain  disregard  of  the  earnest  objection  of  at  least  a  very 
large  minority  among  ourselves;  the  whole  done,  moreover,  in  a  manner 
of  most  unusual  volunteer  precipitation,  soliciting  even  with  threats  the 


TEXAS  IN  THE  ELECTION  OF  1844.         657 

gandism  in  the  defense  of  the  interests  of  the  slavocracy, 
and,  confessedly,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  war.^ 

With  the  conclusion  of  the  annexation  treaty  it  was  de- 
cided that  Texas  would  be  the  decisive  element  in  the  presi- 
dential election  of  1S44.  Even  in  December,  Clay  thought 
that  the  alarm  started  by  Tyler  should  be  noticed  as  little  as 
possible.*    Now  no  one  could  think  of  presenting  himself  be- 

compliance  of  Texas  itself;  and  actually  pledging  the  military  intervention 
of  the  country,  by  simple  unconstitutional  executive  promise,  to  plunge 
directly  into  war  with  Mexico,  if  she  should  execute  her  threat  of  imme- 
diate invasion  of  Texas;  and  this  while  congress,  the  sole  war-making 
authority  under  the  constitution,  is  in  session.  Nay.  more,  what  shall  be 
said  of  our  volunteer  discussion  of  the  essential  merits  of  this  pecuUar  local 
institution,  through  the  peculiar  organ  of  our  collective  nationaUty,  for 
which,  if  for  an3rthing,  the  Union,  and  the  whole  Union,  is  emphatically 
responsible,  in  public  diplomatic  papers,  addressed  to  England,  to  France, 
to  the  whole  civilized  world  ?  If  all  this  can  be  done  by  great  southern 
statesmen,  on  the  avowed  ground,  the  almost  exclusively  avowed  ground 
of  strengthening  and  preserving  the  institution  of  slavery,  what,  we 
repeat,  becomes  of  the  above  stated  position  of  the  state-rights  party  at 
north  and  south,  the  democratic  party  of  strict  constitutional  construction?  " 

'  " .  .  .  The  president  enjoins  it  on  you  to  give  it  [the  Mexican  gov- 
ernment] .  .  .  the  strongest  assurance  .  .  .  that  the  step  was 
forced  on  the  government  of  the  United  States,  in  self-defense,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  poUcy  adopted  by  Great  Britain  in  reference  to  the  abolition 
of  slavery  in  Texas.  It  was  impossible  for  the  United  States  to  witness 
with  indifference  the  efforts  of  Great  Britain  to  abolish  slavery  there. 
They  could  not  but  see  that  she  had  the  means  in  her  power,  in  the  actual 
condition  of  Texas,  to  accomplish  the  objects  of  her  policy,  unless  pre- 
vented by  the  most  eflBcient  measures;  and  that,  if  accomplished,  it  would 
lead  to  a  state  of  things  dangerous  in  the  extreme  to  the  adjacent  states, 
and  the  Union  itself.  Seeing  this,  this  government  has  been  compelled, 
by  the  necessity  of  the  case,  and  a  regard  to  its  constitutional  obligations, 
to  take  the  step  it  has,  as  the  only  certain  and  effectual  means  of  prevent- 
ing it.  It  has  taken  it  in  full  view  of  all  possible  consequences  (!),  but  not 
without  a  desire  and  hope  that  a  full  and  fair  disclosure  of  the  causes 
which  induced  it  to  do  so  would  prevent  the  disturbance  of  the  harmony 
subsisting  between  the  two  countries,  which  the  United  States  is  anxious 
to  preserve."    Sen.  Doc.,  28th  Ck)ngr.,  Ist  Sess.,  Vol.  V,  No.  341,  p.  54. 

*  Adams  writes  December  15,  1843:  "  Mr.  John  J.  Crittenden,  one  of  the 
42 


658  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

fore  tlie  people  as  a  candidate  without  having  taken  a  de- 
cided attitude  towards  this  question. 

Clay  made  his  confession  of  faith,  in  a  letter  of  the  17th 
of  April,  to  the  publisher  of  the  National  Intelligencer} 
He  occupied  the  strongest  position  of  all  the  candidates,  in- 
asmuch as  he  had  been  the  leader  of  the  opposition,  in  1819, 
in  the  house  of  representatives,  against  the  Florida  treaty, 
by  which  the  doubtful  claims  of  the  United  States  to  the 
territory  reaching  to  the  E,io  del  Norte  had  been  surren- 
dered. Hence,  when  he  now  properly  made  short  work  of 
those  who  ventured  to  talk  of  a  simple  resumption  of  the  old 
title  of  possession,  he  carried  all  the  more  weight.^  But  he 
weakened  the  moral  force  of  his  judgment,  by  the  presum- 
ably election-wise  caution  with  which  he  avoided  saying 
clearly,  whether  he  would,  under  any  circumstances  what- 
ever, consider  the  acquisition  of  Texas  desirable.  Towards 
the  end  of  his  letter,  indeed,  he  remarked  how  excellent  it 
would  be,  if  the  United  States  had  Canada  and  Texas  at  their 

Benators  from  the  state  of  Kentucky,  left  with  me  for  my  perusal  a  private 
and  confidential  letter  from  H.  Clay  to  him  on  the  subject  of  Texas,  dated 
the  5th  of  this  month.  He  thinks  Texas  in  Tyler's  hands  is  a  mere  fire- 
brand, to  be  noticed  as  little  as  possible,  Mr.  Crittenden  concurs  with  him 
in  opinion."    Mem.  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XI,  p.  449. 

'Niles,  LXVI,pp.  152,  153. 

"*  It  is,  therefore,  perfectly  idle  and  ridiculous,  if  not  dishonorable,  to 
talk  of  resuming  our  title  to  Texas,  as  if  we  had  never  parted  with  it.  We 
can  no  more  do  that  than  Spain  can  resume  Florida.  France  Louisiana,  or 
Great  Britain  the  thirteen  colonies,  now  composing  a  part  of  the  United 
States."  The  annexionists  now  spoke  only  of  "re-annexatioD."  Ashley, 
of  Arkasas,  had  the  face  to  say  in  the  senate:  "  He  claimed  that  this  terri- 
tory belongs  to  us  now;  that  we  had  never  parted  with  it;  that  we  had  no 
power  to  part  with  it.  He  claimed  that,  by  the  concurrent  authority  of 
every  prominent  man  in  the  country,  we  did  acquire  Texas  by  the  treaty 
of  1803.  .  .  .  Assuming  that  as  true  then,  .  .  .  how  did  she  lose 
her  citizenship  or  nationality  by  any  act  to  which  she  did  not  consent?  " 
Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  215. 


CLAY    ON    ANNEXATION.  659 

side  as  sister  republics,  but  lie  did  not  say  that  this  would 
be  best.  The  argument  proper  was  directed  exclusively 
against  the  particular  circumstances  under  which  the  annex- 
ation had  now  to  be  brought  about.*  Of  these,  he  laid  the 
greatest  stress  on  the  inevitableness  of  a  war  with  Mexico,' 
and  on  the  decided  opposition  of  a  great  portion  of  the  na- 
tion. It  was  even  deserving  of  censure,  that  the  executive, 
without  being  able  to  rely  on  a  wish  of  the  public  opinion 
of  the  country  expressed  so  that  it  could  not  be  ignored,  had, 
of  his  o\vn  motion,  undertaken  a  project  of  so  much  import- 
ance; and  he  was  all  the  more  to  be  blamed,  since  he  had 
not  obtained  even  the  advice  of  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  But,  even  leaving  the  unbecoming  manner  in  which 
the  matter  had  been  carried  on  out  of  consideration,  every 
true  patriot  must  be  opposed  to  the  project,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  was  disapproved  of  by  so  many.  The  first 
and  chief  task  was  plainly  to  make  the  existing  Union  firm 
and  happy.  Hence  new  elements  should  not  be  incorpo- 
rated into  it,  if  it  was  certain  that  great  dissatisfaction  and  a 
weakening  of  the  Union  would  be  the  consequences.'    But  it 

' "  If,  without  the  loss  of  national  character,  without  the  hazard  of  for- 
eign war,  with  the  general  concurrence  of  the  nation,  without  any  danger 
to  the  integrity  of  the  Union,  and  without  giving  unreasonable  price  for 
Texas,  the  question  of  annexation  were  presented,  it  would  appear  in 
quite  a  different  hght  from  that  in  which,  I  apprehend,  it  ia  now  to  be  re- 
garded." 

*  "  Annexation  and  war  with  Mexico  are  indentical." 

» "  I  do  not  think  that  Texas  ought  to  be  received  into  the  Union,  as  an 
integral  part  of  it,  in  decided  opposition  to  the  wishes  of  a  considerable 
and  respectable  portion  of  the  confederacy.  I  think  it  far  more  wise  and 
important  to  compose  and  harmonize  the  present  confederacy,  as  it  now 
exists,  than  to  introduce  a  new  element  of  discord  and  distraction  into  it. 
In  my  humble  opinion,  it  should  be  the  constant  and  earnest  endeavor  of 
American  statesmen  to  eradicate  prejudices,  to  cultivate  and  foster  concord, 
and  to  produce  general  contentment  among  all  parts  of  our  confederacy, 
And  true  wisdom,  it  seems  to  me,  points  to  the  duty  of  rendering  its  present 


660  Jackson's  administration — annexation  of  texas. 

was  entirely  absurd  to  wish  to  restore  the  equilibrium  be- 
tween the  two  halves  of  the  Union,  by  extensions  of  territory. 
There  was  no  seeino:  where  this  course  miorht  lead  to  if  it 
were  once  entered  on.  And,  finally,  in  a  competitive  game  of 
grab,  the  half  of  the  TJHion,  already  the  weaker,  would  re- 
main at  a  disadvantage,  since  the  lion's  share  of  Texas  would 
ultimately  fall  to  the  lot  of  free  labor,  and  hence  to  the  north. 
As  a  last  objection,  Clay  adduces  the  great  burthen  of  the 
debt  of  Texas,  which  would  have  to  be  assumed  by  the 
Union. 

Clay's  letter  is  strongest  and  most  fall  of  conviction  in 
the  part  which  condemns  all  extension  of  territory  from 
sectional  interest  and  at  the  cost  of  internal  harmony.  Here, 
there  is  less  of  shrewd  calculation  than  in  any  other  part, 
and  the  controlling  fundamental  tendency  of  his  whole  po- 
litical life,  although  not  with  all  tlie  warmth  which  might 
be  expected,  finds  vent:  the  greatest  of  political  offenses  is 
shaking  the  Union.  As  to  the  rest,  the  letter  must  hare 
left  all  who  had  taken  a  decided  position  on  the  one  side  or 
the  other,  dissatisfied.  In  all  very  important  points-,  it  was 
either  attempted  to  make  the  turning  of  the  scales  of  the 
balance,  on  this  side  or  on  that,  as  small  as  possible,  or  else 
the  writer  did  not  frankly  speak  out  what  he  really  thouglit. 
Tlie  reader  was  compelled  to  deduce  now  more  and  now  less, 
but  always  something,  by  his  own  conclusions,  and  of  course 
always  at  the  risk  of  seeing  their  correctness  subsequently 
contested.  There  was  only  one  thing  of  which  there  was  no 
doubt —  that  Clay  was,  under  the  circumstances  existing,  op- 
posed to  annexation.  But,  considering  the  great  excitement 
throughout  the  whole  country,  this  was  not  sufiicient.  More 
definite  declarations  were  called  for  by  the  left  wings  of  both 

members  happy,  prosperous  and  satisfied  with  each  other,  rather  than  to 
attempt  to  introduce  alien  members,  against  the  common  consent,  and  with 
the  certainty  of  deep  dissatisfaction." 


CLA.y    ON   ANNEXATION.  661 

parties.  Clay  permitted  such  declarations  to  be  wrested 
from  him,  and  he  threw  the  new  weight  into  the  scale  of 
the  south. 

In  a  letter  of  the  1st  of  July,  1844,  to  St.  F.  Miller,  of 
Alabama,  Clay  repels,  with  some  indignation,  the  insinua- 
tion that  he  had  the  abolitionists  in  mind  when  he  spoke 
of  the  opposition,  whose  opinions  and  wishes  should  be 
taken  into  consideration.'  This  was,  unquestionably,  in  har- 
mony with  the  truth,  but  it  was  not  the  whole  truth.  Clay, 
with  diplomatic  reticence,  passed  over  the  fact  that  the  first 
and  principal  reason  of  the  opposition  of  the  states  which 
he  had  chiefly  in  view,  was  the  extension  of  slavery.  There 
was,  indeed,  a  formal  but  no  material  justification  for  distin- 
guishing thus  strictly,  between  the  opposition  of  these  states 
and  that  of  the  abolitionists.  Hence,  loo.  Clay,  on  this  ac- 
count, spoke  only  of  the  abolitionists  and  not  of  their  mo- 
tive. In  respect  to  the  latter,  indeed,  he  went  a  great  step 
beyond  his  first  letter,  but  allowed  himself  only  a  general 
remark  from  which  his  attitude  on  this  definite  point  might 
be  inferred:  he  assured  the  world  that,  personally,  he  had 
nothing  to  say  against  annexation.'* 

'  "You  have  justly  conceived  my  meaning:,  when  I  referred  in  my  Texas 
letter  to  a  considerable  and  respectable  portion  of  the  confederacy.  And 
you  might  have  strengthened  your  construction  of  the  paragraph,  by  refr 
erence  to  the  fact,  that,  at  the  date  of  my  letter,  the  states  of  Ohio,  Ver- 
mont and  Massachusetts  had,  almost  unanimously,  declared  against  an- 
nexation. ...  As  to  the  idea  of  my  courting  the  abolitionists  it  is 
perfectly  absurd.  No  man  in  the  United  States  has  been  half  as  much 
abused  by  them  as  I  have  been."  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  372. 
'  "  Personally  I  could  have  no  objection  to  the  annexation  of  Texas." 
It  is  interesting  to  note  how  plainly  it  appeared  that,  here  again,  the 
mediating  attitude  of  Clay  was  detennined  by  the  geographical  situation 
of  Kentucky.  "  From  developments  now  being  made  in  South  Carolina, 
it  18  perfectly  manifest  that  a  party  exists  in  that  state  seeking  a  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union,  and  for  that  purpose  employing  the  pretext  of  the  re- 
jection of  Mr.  Tyler's  abominable  treaty.  South  Carolina,  being  sur- 
rounded by  slave  states,  would,  in  the  event  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union, 


662  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

He  did  not  succeed  now,  either,  in  the  untrue  wiping  out 
of  differences.  A  demand  for  plainer  declarations  came  from 
Alabama.  In  ^his  answer  of  the  27th  of  July,  he  confessed 
himself  a  friend  of  annexation,  in  case  it  could  be  brought 
about  without  giving  occasion  to  the  objections  previously 
raised,  and  he  promised,  as  president,  to  allow  himself  to  be 
guided,  in  this  question,  by  the  circumstances  of  the  moment 
entirely.  He  still  accorded  a  large  space  among  these  to 
public  opinion,  but  he  notwithstanding  said  it  was  unwise 
to  drop  annexation  for  the  sake  of  slavery.^ 

The  internal  untruth,  hy  means  of  which  Clay  wished  to 
convince  himself  and  the  people,  that  the  question  of  annex- 
ation could  and  should  be  judged  independently  of  the  ques- 
tion of  slavery,  was  made  entirely  clear  by  this  letter.  This, 
however,  sufficed  to  make  those  whigs  drop  away  from  him, 
who  considered  annexation  as  the  principal  question  in  this 
electoral  campaign,  and  who  either  favored   it  or  uncon- 

suiFer  only  comparative  evils;  but  it  is  otherwise  with  Kentucky.  She  has 
the  boundary  of  the  Ohio  extending  five  hundred  miles  on  the  three  free 
states — what  would  her  condition  be  in  the  event  of  the  greatest  calamity 
that  could  befall  this  nation  ? 

"  In  Kentucky,  the  Texas  question  will  do  the  whig  cause  no  prejudice." 
'  "  But,  gentlemen,  you  are  desirous  of  knowing  by  what  pohcy  I  would 
be  guided,  in  the  event  of  my  election  as  chief  magistrate  of  the  United 
States,  in  reference  to  the  question  of  the  annexation  of  Texas.  I  do  net 
think  it  right  to  announce  in  advance  what  will  be  the  course  of  a  future 
administration  in  respect  to  a  question  with  a  foreign  power.  I  have,  how- 
ever, no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  far  from  having  any  personal  objection 
to  the  annexation  of  Texas,  I  should  be  glad  to  see  it,  without  dishonor  — 
without  war,  with  the  common  consent  of  the  Union,  and  upon  just  and 
fair  terms.  I  do  not  think  that  the  subject  of  slavery  ought  to  affect  the 
question,  one  way  or  the  other.  Whether  Texas  be  independent,  or  incor- 
porated in  the  United  States,  I  do  not  believe  it  will  prolong  or  shorten  the 
duration  of  that  institution.  It  is  destined  to  become  extinct,  at  some  dis- 
tant day,  in  my  opinion,  by  the  operation  of  the  inevitable  laws  of  popula- 
tion. It  would  be  unwise  to  refuse  a  permanent  acquisition,  which  vidll 
exist  as  long  r\s  the  globe  remains,  on  account  of  a  temporaiy  institution." 
Niles,  LXVI,  p.  439. 


CLAY   ON   ANNEXATION.  663 

ditionally  rejected  it  because  of  slavery.  A  very  large  ma- 
jority of  the  party  was,  indeed,  satisfied  to  see  the  decision 
indefinitely  postponed ;  but  it  was  a  question,  whether  the 
issue  of  the  election  would  not  depend  on  the  two  mutually 
opposed  small  minorities  which  Clay  had  alienated  from 
himself  by  his  half-way  position. 

Van  Buren  agreed  with  Clay  in  all  that  was  essential.  A 
certain  Hammet,  a  representative  from  Mississippi,  had  writ- 
ten the  letter  which  was  intended  to  make  him  state  his 
views,  on  the  27th  of  March.  Yan  Buren  delayed  the  mak- 
ing of  them  public,  to  the  last  moment,  in  order  that  he 
might  leave  his  opponents  in  the  party  as  little  time  as  pos- 
sible to  turn  them  to  account  in  the  nominating  convention. 
He  had  left  himself  time  enough  to  make  his  answer,  dated 
the  20th  of  April,  proof  against  any  objection  on  account  of 
a  want  of  clearness,  and  he  had  allowed  himself  space  enough 
to  leave  nothing  unsaid  which  it  was  important  to  say.  But 
the  very  circumstance,  that  the  size  of  his  answer  was  more 
in  keeping  with  a  brochure  than  with  a  letter,*  must  have 
awakened  the  suspicion  that  in  both  respects  his  endeavor  had 
been  the  very  reverse.  And  so  it  was.  It  is  disgusting  to 
follow  the  endless  meandering  paths  by  which  he  seeks  to 
creep  through  the  thorny  hedge  which  shut  him  off  fsom 
the  party  nomination, which  was  already  considered  entirely 
certain.  It  was  a  hard  task,  for  while,  under  the  existing  cir- 
cumstances, he  was  obliged  to  declare  himself  decidedly  op- 
posed to  annexation,  he  had  to  justify  the  entire  policy  of 
Jackson's  and  of  his  own  administration  towards  Texas  and 
Mexico.  And,  in  addition  to  this,  there  was  the  chief  point, 
in  respect  to  which  speech  and  silence  were  equally  ruinous. 
"With  two  obscure  allusions,  he  skims  over  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, whispering  in  the  ears  of  the  hard  southern  masters,  that 

'  It  fills  in  "  Niles'  Register,''  twelve  and  one-half  columns  of  one  hun- 
dred closely  printed  lines  each.    Ibid.,  pp.  153-157. 


J64  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tliej  should,  indeed,  believe  him ;  that  he  was  now,  as  he  had 
been  before,  the  northern  man  with  southern  principles.* 

In  vain  Jackson  himself  went  surety,  that  the  sage  of  Kin- 
derhook  might  be  trusted,  and  that  he  would  permit  himself 
to  be  set  right.^  The  southern  wing  governed  the  party,  and 
it  was  resolved,  under  no  circumstances,  to  allow  that  to  be 

'  "The  present  condition  of  the  relations  between  Mexico  and  Texas  may 
soon  be  so  far  changed  as  to  weaken,  and  perhaps  to  obviate  entirely,  the 
objections  against  the  immediate  annexation  of  the  latter  to  the  United 
States,  which  I  have  here  set  forth,  and  to  place  the  question  on  dififerent 
grounds.  Should  such  a  state  of  things  arise,  and  I  be  found  in  charge  of 
the  responsible  duties  of  president,  you  may  be  assured  that  I  would  meet 
the  question,  if  then  presented  to  me,  with  a  sincere  desire  to  promote  the 
result  which  1  beUeved  best  calculated  to  advance  the  permanent  welfare 
of  the  whole  country.  In  the  discharge  of  this,  the  common  duty  of  all 
our  pubUc  functionaries,  I  would  not  allow  myself  to  be  influenced  by  local 
or  sectional  feeUngs.  I  am  not,  I  need  hardly  say  to  you,  an  untried  man 
in  my  disposition  or  abiUty  to  disregard  any  feeling  of  that  character  in  the 
discharge  of  olficial  duties.  You,  as  well  as  aU  others,  have  therefore  at 
least  some  grounds  on  which  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  the  probable  fidehty 
with  which  these  assurances  would  be  observed. 

"...  If,  after  the  whole  subject  had  been  brought  before  the 
country,  and  fully  discussed,  as  it  now  will  be,  the  senate  and  house  of 
representatives,  a  large  portion  of  the  former,  and  the  whole  of  the  latter 
being  chosen  by  the  people,  after  the  question  of  annexation  had  been 
brought  before  the  country  for  its  mature  consideration,  should  express  an 
opinion  in  favor  of  annexation,  I  would  hold  it  to  be  my  further  duty  to 
employ  the  executive  power  to  carry  into  full  and  fair  efiFect  the  wishes  of 
a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  existing  states,  thus  constitutionally  and 
solernnly  expressed." 

'  •'  I  carmot  dose  these  remarks  without  saying  that  my  regard  for  Mr. 
Van  Buren  is  so  great,  and  my  confidence  in  his  love  of  country  is  strength- 
ened by  so  long  and  intimate  an  acquaintance,  that  no  difference  on  this 
subject  [the  annexation  of  Texas]  can  change  my  opinion  of  his  character. 
He  has  evidently  prepared  his  letter  from  a  knowledge  only  of  the  circum- 
stances bearing  on  the  subject  as  they  existed  at  the  close  of  his  adminis- 
tration, without  a  view  of  the  disclosures  since  made,  and  which  manifest 
the  probability  of  a  dangerous  interference  with  the  afiairs  of  Texas  by  a 
foreign  power."  A.  Jackson  to  the  editor  of  the  "  Nashville  Union,"  May 
13,  1844.    Niles'  Reg.,  LXVI,  p.  328. 


VAN  bueen's  chances.  665 

postponed  till  to-morrow  which  could  be  done  to-day.  Van 
Buren's  adherents  had  now  to  suffer  because  they  were  the 
first  to  enunciate  the  rule,  tha*  the  party  would  have  to  make 
the  man  their  candidate  for  whom  the  greatest  number  of 
votes  could  be  obtained.*  This,  unquestionably,  could  be 
claimed  no  longer  for  Van  Buren,  for  the  annexationists  were 
resolved  not  to  yield,  because  they  were  convinced  that  the 
resistants  would  rather  submit  than  persist  in  their  resist- 
ance at  the  risk  of  witnessing  the  disruption  of  the  party. 
The  Spectator^  which  was  considered  Calhoun's  organ  in 
Washington,  formally  announced  that  it  was  superfluous  to 
talk  any  longer  of  Van  Buren's  candidacj'.^  The  great  raa- 
jority  of  the  delegates  to  the  convention  were,  indeed,  either 
expressly  instructed  to  vote  for  Van  Buren  or  chosen,  con- 
fessedly, on  the  supposition  that  they  would  declare  in  his 
favor.  This,  however,  did  not  disturb  "  the  small  but  pow- 
erful party  "  of  the  opponents.  For  weeks,  it  had  applied 
itself  to  its  mole-like  work  in  Washington,  with  the  greatest 
energy.  The  question  of  annexation  which  shook  the  Union 
to  its  base,  was  not  only  to  be  decided  before  an  opportunity 
was  offered  to  the  people  to  assume  some  attitude  towards 
it,  in  a  general  election,  but  the  decision  was  to  be  given  by 
a  president  who  was  to  be  forced  on  the  party  contrary  to  its 
declared  will,  so  far  as  anything  whatever  could  be  said  of 

'  "  To  ascertain  which  of  the  democratic  candidates  is  likely  to  concen- 
trate the  most  number  of  votes  in  the  election,  is  the  obvious  path  by  which 
the  convention  must  approach  its  object."  Address  to  the  democracy  of 
the  United  States  of  "friends  of  Mr.  Van  Buren  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia."   FaU  of  1843.    Ibid.,  LXV,  p.  24. 

»  "  We  have,  for  six  months,  looked  to  Mr.  Van  Buren  as  the  candidate 
of  the  democmtic  party  for  the  presidency,  and  expected  as  such  to  support 
him,  as  we  had  done  at  the  last  election.  Mr.  Calhoun's  friends  in  Vir- 
ginia cooperated  with  all  their  zeal  with  his  friends  in  the  late  elections. 
But  Texas  has  destroyed  him;  and  considering  him  as  beside  the  presiden- 
tial canvass,  we  shall  hereafter  ^ay  but  httle  concerning  him  in  connection 
with  this  high  office."    NUes,  LXVI,  p.  162 


<56Q  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

an  expressioa  of  tlie  will  of  the  people,  in  relation  to  the 
setting  np  of  a  candidate.  It  was  of  no  avail  that,  as  has 
already  been  said,  the  democratic  representatives  of  Ohio,  in 
a  circular  to  their  constituents,  dated  the  1st  of  May,  sol- 
emnly denounced  the  intrigue.^  The  moral  indignation  must 
have  seemed  very  weak  to  the  person  who  had  caught  a 
glimpse  behind  the  curtain,  and  who  knew  how  Yan  Buren 
had  been  made  a  candidate  of  the  "  people."  It  now  suited 
those  attacked,  for  the  most  part,  just  as  well  to  continue  to 
play  the  game  above  board.  Of  what  avail  was  the  half-true 
moralizing  abuut  the  declared  will  of  the  people,  in  relation  to 
persons,  among  whom  those  men  had,  in  part,  most  to  say  who 
had  themselves  done  their  best  to  manufacture  that  will?  No 
one  had  striven  against  Calhoun  in  favor  of  Yan  Buren 
more  devotedly,  fervently  and  successfully  than  Thomas 
Ritchie  of  the  Richrriond  Enquirer.  And  Ritchie,  the  chair- 
man of  the  democratic  state  committee  of  Yirginia,  now  de- 
manded on  the  3d  of  May,  in  a  party  meeting,  the  recall  of 
the  instructions  given  to  the  delegates.'^  Since,  moreover, 
the  bad  result  of  the  town  elections  in  Yirginia,  Connecticut, 
Maryland  and  I^ew  York  had  greatly  demoralized  Yan 
Buren's  adherents,  they  certainly  could  not  expect,  spite  of 
all  instructions,  to  have  an  easy  position  against  the  minority, 
which  declared  itself  irrevocably  determined  to  play  va 
hanque!  on  the  card  Texas.^ 

'1.  c. 

'  "  Uesolved,  That  the  democratic  central  committee  be  requested  forth- 
with to  issue  an  address  to  the  democratic  party  of  Virginia  urging  the 
serious  and  prompt  expression  of  their  opinion  on  the  subject  of  a  re-annex- 
ation of  Texas  to  the  Union  —  the  propriety  of  relieving  their  delegates  to 
the  Baltimore  convention  from  the  instructions  which  now  bind  them, 
leaving  them  to  the  exercise  of  a  sound  discretion,  or  even  to  instruct  them, 
if  they  deem  it  expedient  to  do  so,  to  cast  the  vote  of  Virginia  in  favor  of 
men  known  and  pledged  to  be  in  favor  of  annexation,  and  "  etc.    1.  c. 

*The  "  South  Carolinian,"  pubUshed  in  Columbia,  writes  on  the  30th  of 
May:  "  The  south  is  deeply  and  almost  imanimously  aroused  on  the  ques- 


TAN  bueen's  chances.  667 

It  was  certain  that  the  majority  of  the  democratic  national 
convention  which  met  in  Baltimore  on  the  27th  of  May, 
would  vote  for  Van  Buren;  but  it  was  yet  to  be  determined 
whether  they  would  desire  his  nomination  also.  Even  before 
the  examination  of  credentials  had  been  begun,  the  minority  of 
the  annexationists  opened  the  battle  against  the  official  Van 
Buren  majority.  Saunders,  of  North  Carolina,  checkmated 
tliem  by  the  motion  to  adopt  the  rules  of  the  national  con- 
vention of  1832,  as  the  order  of  business.*  By  his  side  stood 
Walker,  of  Mississippi,  in  the  role  of  furious  Hagen  (of  the 
Nibelungenlied),  of  the  annexationists,  and  Van  Buren 's 
honest  adherents  were  led  by  B.  F.  Butler,  of  New  York, 
who  was,  at  one  time,  the  chief  of  Van  Buren's  cabinet.  The 
decisive  point  in  Saunders's  motion  was  the  provision  that 
two-thirds  of  all  the  votes  should  be  requisite  to  a  nomina- 
tion. It  had  been  so  held,  in  the  convention  of  1832,  and 
in  that  of  1835,  after  the  latter  had  first  declared  a  simple 
majority  to  be  sufficient.    Van  Buren's  partisans,  therefore, 

tion  of  annexation.  This  question  absorbs  all  others.  Even  that  all-ab- 
sorbrng  and  all-comipting  one,  the  presidency,  sinks  into  insignificance 
before  it.  Whigs  and  democrats  drop  all  their  old  party  diflFerences,  and 
unite  on  it  like  brothers  —  the  democrats  apparently  to  a  man;  and  the 
whigs,  also,  with  the  exception  of  the  most  blindly  infatuated  supporters 
of  Mr.  Clay.  All  others  seem  instinctively  to  feel  that  this  is  a  question, 
not  of*party  but  of  country,  and,  to  the  south,  one  of  absolute  self-preser- 
vation. Over  the  south,  and  some  other  portions  of  other  sections,  Mr. 
Van  Buren  is  dropped  by  his  mo^t  devoted  followers.  The  people  are  re- 
leasing their  delegates  to  the  Baltimore  convention  from  their  instructions 
to  vote  for  him,  and  many  of  the  delegates  themselves  are  declaring  against 
him;  and  if  there  were  only  time  for  concert  of  action,  he  would  not  prob- 
ably have  received  a  single  vote  from  the  south.  For  want  of  this  concert 
he  may  have  been  nominated  by  the  convention  (which  was  to  meet  on 
Monday  last)  —  probably  was  so,  under  the  rigid  party  discipline  which 
secured  the  appointment  of  the  delegates.  Our  late  private  letters  from 
Washington  indicate  as  much,  but  say  that  if  he  is,  a  third  candidate,  in 
favor  of  annexation,  vrill  assuredly  be  nominated."  Niles,  LXVI,  p.  229. 
'  I  foUow  the  report  in  Nfles,  LXVI,  pp.  211-218. 


G6S  Jackson's  ADinNisxKATiON  —  annexation  of  texas. 

took  to  playing  comedy  when  tliey  represented  Saunders's 
motion  as  an  entirely  unheard-of,  monstrous  offense  against 
the  democratic  principle  of  the  rule  of  the  majority.  If  one 
placed  himself  on  the  ground  of  pure  theory,  the  measure 
might,  at  the  first  blush,  seem  very  expedient;  for  did  it  not 
become  more  probable,  that  it  would  be  possible  to  bring  the 
whole  strength  of  the  party  into  the  field,  the  more  unani- 
mously the  confidential  men  of  the  people  had  decided  in  favor 
of  a  candidate?  Moreover,  a  combination  of  the  larger  states 
had  the  majority  of  the  delegates,  but,  by  no  means,  that  of 
the  party  also.*  On  the  other  hand,  it  was  remarked  by  the 
other  side,  that,  if  any  one  was  to  yield,  it  evidently  became 
the  minority  to  do  so,  and  that  it  should  not  be  supposed 
that  the  majority  would  do  so.  If  it  were  in  the  power  of 
the  minority  to  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  every  candidate 
of  the  simple  majority,  it  might,  j)erhaps,  happen  that  the 
unanimity  which  seemed  so  expedient  might  be  obtained 
only  for  a  man  whom  no  one  had  greatly  desired  in  fact, 
and  of  whom  the  people  knew  scarcely  more  than  the  name. 
The  theory,  indeed,  might  have  been  wrangled  over  to  the 
end  of  days,  and  much  be  brought  forward  in  favor  of  both 
sides.  Only  one  thing  was  incontestable,  that  neither  the 
one  theory  nor  the  other  afforded  any  guaranty  whatever, 
of  an  agreement  between  the  resolutions  of  the  convention 
and  the  wishes  of  the  people.  And,  indeed,  the  real  c[ues- 
tion  was,  by  no  means,  how  these  wishes  might  be  realized 
most  surely.     The  only  point  at  issue  was,  which  group  of 

'  Walker  said:  "  The  states  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  one 
or  two  others,  exhibited  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  convention,  but  certainly 
they  represented  a  large  minority  of  the  democracy.  ...  He  opposed 
a  departure  from  the  two-third  rule  as  an  abandonment  of  democratic  prin- 
ciples; it  was  to  resign  aU  the  hopes  and  prospects  of  the  party  to  the  con- 
ti'ol  of  a  minority,  and  could  but  terminate  in  disorganization,  division  and 
defeat;  ...  it  was  ...  to  consign  the  democratic  party  to  the 
hands  of  those  whose  motto  would  appear  to  be  '  rule  or  ruin.'  " 


SAUXDEES'S   MOTIOir.  669 

politicians  should  obtain  the  victory  over  the  other,  Tlie 
angnrs  laughed  in  one  another's  face  at  their  discussions  of 
the  principles  involved.  Butler,  therefore,  soon  gave  up 
wasting  the  strength  of  his  lungs  on  them.  With  refreshing 
sobriety  and  a  frankness  deserving  of  recognition,  he  put  the 
question  in  controversy  thus:  We  have  the  majority  for 
Van  Bnren ;  if  Saunders's  motion  is  adopted,  it  is  all  over 
with  our  man.*  When  to  this  he  added  that  the  minority 
would  bring  it  to  such  a  pass,  by  their  stubbornness,  that 
tlie  convention  would  dissolve  without  reaching  any  result, 
he  knew,  better  than  any  one  else,  how  vain  was  the  threat* 
The  discussions  relating  to  the  principles  involved  were 
only  smoke  and  dust;  but  the  fight  over  Saunders's  motion 
was  most  bitterly  serious.     And  yet,  even  this  latter  would 

'  "  He  had  been  appointed  a  delegate  to  the  convention,  and  accepted 
his  credentials,  as  did  his  colleagxies,  with  instractions  to  support  and  do 
all  in  their  power  to  secure  the  nomination  of  a  certain  person.  By  con- 
senting to  the  adoption  of  the  two-third  rule,  he  with  them  would  prove 
unfaithful  to  their  trust  and  their  honor.  He  knew  well  that  in  voting  by 
simple  m^ority,  the  friend  he  was  pledged  to  support  would  receive  ten  to 
fifteen  majority,  and  consequently  the  nomination.  If  two-thirds  should 
be  required  to  make  a  choice,  that  friend  must  inevitably  be  defeated,  and 
that  defeat  caused  by  the  action  of  states  which  could  not  be  claimed  as 
democratic."  The  last  assertion  might  have  been  very  easily  verified,  and 
it  was,  at  all  events,  a  possibility  which  was  of  great  interest  for  the  theo- 
retical discussion.  Butler  only  forgot  that  New  York  belon^d  to  the  states 
in  which  a  democratic  victory  was  very  doubtful.  Dickinson,  of  New  York, 
said:  "  He  had  no  objection  to  members  giving  Mr.  Van  Buren  a  vote  of 
two-tliirds  —  he  should  rejoice  to  see  it — but  that  gentleman  was  entitled 
to  the  nomination  at  the  hands  of  a  majority.  It  was  true  New  York  had 
been  defeated  in  the  last  contest,  but  she  would  not  only  call  upon  Her- 
cules, but  put  the  shoulder  to  the  wheel  in  good  earnest  in  the  next." 

' "  He  precUcted,  if  the  rule  should  be  carried,  dismemberment  and  final 
breaking  up  of  the  party,  if  people  persisted  in  going  for  men,  and  not 
measuir's,  a  black  fla^  would  be  raised  over  them  —  the  pall  of  deatli 
would  shroud  their  hopes,  and  a  funeral  dirge  might  be  sung.  The  con- 
vention would  have  to  a^joiun  sine  die  without  effecting  a  nomination 
at  all." 


670  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

have  been  useless  and  aimless  talk,  were  it  not  that  both 
sides  knew  very  well  that  Yan  Buren  could  count  on  more 
votes  than  he  had  friends  in  the  convention.  Yet,  virtually, 
the  decision  lay  with  the  simple  majority,  since,  in  order  to 
assure  Yan  Buren's  triumph,  all  that  they  needed  to  do  was 
to  decline  Saunders's  proposition.  But  that  proposition  was 
adopted  by  the  respectable  majority  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-eight  against  one  hundred  and  eighteen  votes.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  that,  of  the  nays,  there  were  only  fourteen 
from  the  slave  states:  the  seven  belonging  to  Missouri,  which 
was  entirely  under  Benton's  influence;  five  —  exactly  the 
half  of  the  delegation  —  of  always  moderate  North  Carolina, 
and  two  out  of  Maryland's  eight  votes.  The  south  was  al- 
most unanimous  against  Yan  Buren,  that  is,  in  favor  of  the 
immediate  annexation  of  Texas ;  and  the  north,  in  great  part, 
supplied  the  men  who  handed  Yan  Buren  over  to  his  enemies 
with  a  kiss.  He  was  paid  the  bootless  compliment  of  a  ma- 
jority vote,  but,  as  early  as  the  second  ballot,  he  had  only  a 
minority,  although  he  distanced  all  his  competitors  until  the 
fourth.  He  was  then  outflanked  by  Cass,  who,  however,  was 
not  able  to  succeed  in  obtaining  a  majority.  The  number 
of  votes  cast  for  him  decreased  on  the  eighth  ballot,  and  now 
the  name  of  Governor  Polk,  of  Tennessee,  appeared,  for  the 
first  time,  but  he  received  only  forty-four  votes.  The  demo- 
crats of  Tennessee  had  presented  Polk's  name  as  a  candidate 
for  the  vice-presidency,^  but  only  once,  and  only  a  few  days 
before,  was  a  scarcely  perceptible  intimation  thrown  out  that 
lie  might  be  selected  for  the  presidency.^  The  ninth  ballot 
was  interrupted.     The  Yirginia  delegation,  which  had  been 

•Niles,  XLV.p.  343. 

*  "  We  guess  the  claims  of  Mr.  Polk  and  others  will  be  urged  privately 
or  publicly,  and  after  two  or  three  ballotings,  there  will  be  a  cordial,  har- 
monious and  strong  union  upon  one  of  them,  who  will  be  hailed  as  the 
candidate  of  the  great  democratic  party  with  enthusiasm  and  unanimity." 
Nashville  Union,  May  23,  1844.    Ibid.,  LXVI,  p.  235. 


POI^   NOMINATED.  671 

unanimously  in  favor  of  Saunders's  proposition,  painfully 
admitted  that  it  had  to  give  Yan  Buren  up  and  cast  its  vote 
for  Polk.  This  was  the  signal  for  the  end  of  the  sorry  busi- 
ness. "Polk!"  "Polk!"  was  now  heard  on  every  side. 
The  states  which  had  already  voted  were  now  permitted  to 
correct  their  vote,  and  Polk  received  the  entire  two  hundred 
and  sixty-six  votes.^  • 

The  election  of  the  vice-president  did  not  take  much  time. 
On  the  very  first  ballot,  Silas  Wright  received  nearly  all  the 
votes.  Benton  was  of  opinion  that  this  choice  proved  that 
Yan  Buren  was  thrust  aside,  not  so  much  on  account  of 
his  attitude  towards  the  question  of  annexation  as  because 
this  question  of  annexation  had  been  used  to  bring  the  in- 
trigues, which  had  been  long  carried  on  against  him,  to  a 
happy  termination.'  It  is  incontestably  true  that  many 
democratic  politicians  did  not  want  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  Yan  Buren,  under  any  circumstances.  But  to  infer 
from  the  election  of  Wright,  who  entertained  the  same  views 
on  the  question  of  annexation,  that  the  latter  was  not  the 
chief  and  decisive  element,  is  a  blunder  of  which  so  old  a 
politician  should  not  have  become  guilty.  Wright  recom- 
mended himself  to  the  convention  by  these  very  opinions, 
and  by  the  fact  that  he  was  from  New  York.  The  annexa- 
tionists now  as  little  feared  to  see  their  circle  disturbed  by 
Wright  as  vice-president,  as  the  whigs  expected  any  evil  to 
them  four  years  before  from  the  nomination  of  Tyler.  They 
saw  in  these  elements  only  the  sugar  which  was  to  sweeten 
Yan  Buren's  defeat  and  Polk's  nomination  for  the  luke- 
warm and  the  resistants.     Hence,  Wright's  decided  declina- 

'  Kettlewell,  of  Baltimore,  accompanied  hia  lamentation  over  the  foci 
that  South  Carolina  had  sent  no  delegation,  with  the  pretty  remark:  "The 
convention  had  passed  through  the  refining  fire,  and  like  gold  waa  now  the 
purer  for  it." 

» Thomas  Benton  to  Gen.  Van  Antwerp,  June  3,  1844,  Niles,  LXVI, 
p.  314. 


672  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

tion  was,  by  no  means,  agreeable  to  tbem.  This  was,  indeed, 
of  no  great  importance.  People  smiled  at  the  enthusiast 
McGinnis,  of  Missom'i,  who  launched  his  anathema  at  the 
dissolving  convention  because  of  tlie  fraud  which  it  had 
practiced  on  the  party  and  the  country.^  Yet  Butler  had, 
immediately  after  Virginia  had  declared  in  favor  of  Polk, 
drawn  a  letter  of  Van  Bnren's  out  of  his  pocket,  which  had 
been  anxiously  kept  secret,  in  which  the  latter  authorized 
him  to  withdraw  his  name  at  any  time,  and  then  went  over 
with  the  !N'ew  York  delegation,  with  a  loud  flourish  of 
trumpets,  into  Polk's  camp.  Tlie  gentlemen  knew  too  well 
how  rigid  the  discipline  of  the  masses  was,  to  permit  them 
to  be  over  solicitous  concerning  the  irreconcilables  among 
the  dissatisfied. 

The  results  of  the  Baltimore  convention  made  the  annexa- 
tionists certain  that  they  would  reach  the  goal  they  had  set 
themselves  in  case  the  democratic  party  was  victorious;  they 
could  rely,  absolutely,  on  Polk,  and  the  party  had  been  for- 
mally pledged  to  annexation.'^  They  had  taken  the  precau- 
tion to  make  themselves  sure  of  the  future,  in  this  manner 
first,  before  they  allowed  a  decision  on  the  annexation  treaty 
to  be  made.  It  is  said  that  Calhoun  obtained  from  Archer, 
of  Virginia,  the  chairman  of  the  committee  on  foreign  affairs, 
the  solemn  promise  that  he  would  delay  the  senate  forty 
days.  Benton's  assertion  that  this  term  was  fixed  with  rela- 
tion to  the  Baltimore  convention,  which  met  two  days  before, 

•  "  It  has  committed  a  gross  fraud — a  fraud  upon  the  democratic  party  — 
a  fraud  upon  the  country.  I  go  against  it —  Missouri  will  go  against  it  — 
I  denounce  it.  I  know  that  it  is  useless  to  spend  more  breath  upon  the 
subject  here,  but  the  people  will  see  it,  and  treat  it  as  it  deserves  to  be 
treated." 

* "  Resolved,  .  ,  .  that  the  re-occupation  of  Oregon  and  the  re- 
annexation  of  Texas  at  the  earliest  practicable  period  are  great  American 
measures,  which  this  convention  recommends  to  the  cordial  support  of  the 
democracy  of  the  Union."    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  227. 


THE  senate's  delay.  673 

is  unquestionably  well  founded.  However,  the  administra- 
tion pretended  that  this  long  delay  was  asked  only  because 
Mexico's  answer  to  the  notification  of  the  treaty  was  to  arrive 
by  the  last  day  of  that  term.'  But  this  time  might,  cer- 
tainly, have  been  shortened  a  little;  or  by  dispatching  the 
answer  to  Packenhara  immediatel}'  after  the  close  of  the 
treaty,  some  days  might  have  been  gained.  If  no  regard 
whatever  was  had  for  the  convention,  this  liberality  as  to 
time,  was,  to  say  the  least,  surprising;  since,  according  to 
Calhoun,  England's  evil  intentions  made  the  greatest  dis- 
patch the  highest  duty  of  the  United  States.  And  what  was 
expected  of  this  whole  correspondence  with  Mexico?  Mex- 
ico was  denied  all  right  to  say  a  word  in  the  transaction  be- 
tween the  United  States  and  Texas,  and  the  treaty  brand-new 
was  now  sent  to  it,  with  the  exculpatory  assurance,  that  the 
policy  of  England  had  left  the  United  States  no  possibility  for 
a  nrevious  understandina:  with  Mexico.  It  was  told  that  the 
United  States  would  not  desist  from  the  resolve  once  taken, 
even  if  it  cost  a  war;  and,  notwithstanding  this,  the  action 
of  the  senate  was  prevented  because  it  was  not  known 
whether  Mexico  would  give  its  consent  or  not.  But  it  was 
as  easy  to  find  an  explanation  of  the  fact  that  Tyler  and  Cal- 
houn were  desirous  to  gain  time  as  it  was  difiicult  to  recon- 
cile these  contradictions. 

The  administration  must  have  been  exceedingly  hopeful, 
if  it  were  not  convinced,  long  before  the  Baltimore  conven- 
tion, that  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  was  not  to  be  thought 
of.  Two  caufees  gave  the  unconditional  opponents  of  annexa- 
tion a  very  reasonable  prospect,  from  the  very  first,  that  they 
would  find  on  their  side  all  those  whose  changing  principles 
were  wont  to  accommodate  themselves  to  the  commands  of 
the  interest  of  party,  and  even  some  of  the  violent  annexa- 
tionists opposed  to  this  treaty.     If,  on  the  one  hand,  the 

•  Thirty  Years'  View,  H,  pp.  608,  609. 
43 


674  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Packenham  correspondence  had  fulfilled  its  purpose,  the 
consolidation  of  the  south,  in  relation  to  the  question  of 
annexation,  to  the  extent  that  Calhoun  might  have  expected ; 
that  same  correspondence  had,  on  the  other  hand,  made  it 
almost  impossible  for  the  senators  of  the  free  states  to  vote 
for  the  treaty.  Many  of  the  free  states  might  be  won  over 
to  annexation,  but  to  accomplish  it  on  such  ofiicial  grounds 
was  to  impute  altogether  too  much  to  them.  The  shrewd 
calculators  wished  all  the  less  to  expose  themselves  to  any 
danger  in  this  respect,  as  they  found  that  they  could  not  at 
all  convince  themselves  of  the  necessity  of  such  immoderate 
haste.  They  thought  that,  at  best,  Tyler's  or  Calhoun's  per- 
sonal interest  might  make  that  haste  imperative,  and  this 
was  to  them  another  reason  why  they  should  grant  them- 
selves time.  The  senate  by  no  means  accepted,  on  faith, 
all  that  the  president  and  secretary  of  state  were  pleased  to 
serve  up  to  it.  "With  great  perseverance,  it  wrung  from  the 
unwilling  administration  one  bundle  of  documents  after  the 
other,  and  the  more  clearly  these  exposed  the  true  state  of 
the  case,  the  larger  grew  the  number  of  those  who  consid- 
ered it  disgraceful,  or,  to  say  the  least,  inexpedient,  to  thus 
harvest  the  reward  of  the  intrigues  of  fifteen  years.  The 
course  adopted  against  Mexico  was  subjected  to  a  caustic 
criticism  even  by  decided  annexationists  like  Benton.  All  did 
not  find  in  the  intensity  of  their  craving  for  the  possession 
of  Texas  the  measure  of  that  which  the  nation's  honor 
allowed,  nor  the  weight  which  should  serve  as  a  counterpoise 
to  a  war  with  Mexico.  Moreover,  the  "majority  believed  that 
the  consideration  due  to  the  senate  and  to  the  rights  of  con- 
gress had  been  so  grossly  infringed  upon,  by  the  administra- 
tion, that  it  could  not  overlook  the  dereliction,  simply  to 
obtain  Texas  a  few  months  sooner.  The  president  was  not 
precisely  obliged  to  consult  the  senate  before  the  close  of  the 
treaty.     But  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  senate  thought 


THE   QUESTION  OF   A  WAS.  676 

tliat  the  consideration  due  it  had  not  been  paid  it,  and  looked 
upon  it,  that,  in  a  question  of  so  much  importance,  it  was 
placed  before  an  accomplished  fact,  as  an  unbecoming  ma- 
noeuvre. The  administration  and  the  defenders  of  the  treaty 
gave  it  clearly  to  be  understood  that  by  its  rejection  Texas 
might  be  trifled  away  forever.  Even  if  they  themselves 
scarcely  believed  this,  the  very  pretense  that  they  did  believe  it, 
proved  that,  so  far  as  there  had  been  any  possibility  whatever 
to  do  so,  the  senate  should  have  been  forcibly  placed  before 
the  alternative  of  dropping  Texas  entirely  or  of  taking  it  on 
the  conditions  agreed  upon  without  its  action.  The  presi- 
dent, in  order  to  attain  this,  had  not  hesitated  to  take  a  step, 
which,  if  it  were  not  a  direct  monstrous  usurpation,  might 
have,  at  any  moment,  the  same  consequences  as  such  a  usur- 
pation. If  it  was  not  the  duty  of  the  United  States  to  obtain 
Mexico's  previous  consent  to  the  annexation — and  it  certainly 
seems  to  me  that  no  such  duty  existed  —  the  president  was 
under  no  constitutional  obligation  to  pay  any  attention  to 
Mexico's  declaration,  that  it  would  look  upon  the  annexation 
as  a  declaration  of  war;  although  it,  undoubtedly,  was  a 
weighty  reason  not  to  proceed  any  further  without,  at  least, 
coming  to  a  previous  understanding  with  the  senate,  in  case 
the  urgency  of  the  occasion  did  not  really  permit  hira  to 
wait  for  a  sufficient  expression  of  public  opinion  in  the 
general  election.  But  where  did  the  president  get  the  right 
to  issue  the  orders  to  the  land  and  naval  forces,  already 
mentioned,  in  accordance  with  which  the  United  States  were 
actually  to  inaugurate  the  war  against  Mexico,  the  moment 
the  latter  should  make  an  attack  upon  Texas?  The  consti- 
tution gives  the  right  to  declare  war  to  congress  exclusively. 
Is  it  possible,  from  the  right  of  the  president  to  take  the 
initiative  in  relation  to  international  treaties,  to  infer  hie 
authority  to  take  steps  which  would  make  a  war  the  direct 
consequence  of  the  deportment  of  a  foreign  power  towards 


676  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

a  third  state?  Before  the  close  of  the  treaty,  Tyler  had  de- 
clared himself,  through  Nelson,  incompetent  to  take  these 
steps,  and  now  he  would  have  it  that  he  acquired  the  right 
to  take  them  through  that  same  treaty.*  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  rights  acquired  by  the  United  States  in  rela- 
tion to  Texas  or  Mexico  by  the  imperfect  treaty,  certain  it 
is  that  that  treaty  could  not  be  to  the  president  the  source 
of  rights  in  his  relation  to  the  other  factors  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Union.  The  healthy  common  sense  of  the 
originators  of  the  constitution  was  contested  by  the  allega- 
tion that  they  had  not,  indeed,  granted  the  president  certain 
powers,  but  that  they  had  accorded  him  a  right  which  he 
needed  only  to  use  in  order  to  acquire  these  powers.  Even 
the  "  hope  "  and  the  "  faith  "  that  the  senate  would  ratify 
the  treaty  were  better  grounds  of  justification.^ 

'  "  At  the  same  time,  it  is  due  to  myself  that  I  should  declare  it  as  my 
opinion,  that  the  United  States  having  by  the  treaty  of  annexation  ac- 
quired a  title  to  Texas  which  requires  only  the  action  of  the  senate  to  per- 
fect it,  no  other  power  could  be  permitted  to  invade,  and  by  force  of  arms 
to  possess  itself  of,  any  portion  of  the  territory  of  Texas,  pending  your 
dehberations  upon  the  treaty,  without  placing  itself  in  a  hostile  attitude  to 
the  United  States,  and  justifying  the  employment  of  any  means  at  our 
disposal  to  drive  back  the  invasion."  Message  of  May  15, 1844.  Statesm.'s 
Man.,  II,  p.  1468. 

'  "  I  have  to  inform  the  senate  that,  in  consequence  of  the  declaration 
of  Mexico,  communicated  to  this  government,  and  by  me  laid  before  con- 
gress at  the  opening  of  its  present  session,  announcing  the  determination 
of  Mexico  to  regard  as  a  declaration  of  war  against  her  by  the  United 
States  the  definitive  ratification  of  any  treaty  with  Texas  annexing  the 
territory  of  Miat  repubhc  to  the  United  States,  and  the  hope  and  beUef 
entertained  by  the  executive  that  the  treaty  with  Texas  for  that  purpose 
would  be  speedily  approved  and  ratified  by  the  senate,  it  was  regarded  by 
the  executive  to  have  become  emphatically  its  duty  to  concentrate  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  its  vicinity,  as  a  precautionaiy  measure,  as  large  a 
portion  of  the  home  squadron  imder  the  command  of  Captain  Connor,  as 
could  well  be  dravm  together;  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  assemble  at  Fort 
Jesup,  on  the  borders  of  Texas,  as  large  a  military  force  as  the  demands 
of  the  service  at  other  encampments  would  authorize  to  be  detached." 
Ibid.,  p.  1467. 


THE   TBEATY   EEJECTED.  677 

"We  need  not  examine  the  question,  how  far  Tyler  and  Cal- 
houn themselves  attached,  in  good  faith,  any  weight  to  their 
own  arguments.  One  thing  alone  was  inviolably  established 
for  them  — that  Texas  must  be  acquired,  if  not  in  a  way  in 
harmony  with 'the  theories  of  the  constitution  which  they  had 
always  contended  for,  in  some  other  manner.  On  the  8th 
of  June,  the  senate  rejected  the  treaty  by  a  vote  of  thirty-five 
against  sixteen.^  As  early  as  the  end  of  April,  before  its 
provisions  had  become  known,  it  was  written  from  "Wash- 
ington to  the  New  York  True  Sun,  that,  in  this  event, 
other  roads  to  reach  the  end  sought  would  have  to  be  taken 
without  delay.''  This  prophecy  was  now  fulfilled.  On  the 
10th  of  June,  Tyler  sent  a  message  to  the  house  of  repre- 

•  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  619;  Statesm.'s  Man.,  U,  p.  1531. 

* "  The  excitement  has  risen  to  an  intense  pitch.  The  dty  is  thronged 
with  a  multitude  of  Mexican  claimants,  owners  of  Texas  land,  speculators 
in  scrips,  and  persons  interested  in  a  thousand  ways  for  the  anticipated 
treaty.  .  .  .  There  has  an  assurance  crept  out,  however,  that  a  pro- 
viso Umiting  the  exchange  of  i-atifications  to  a  period  of  four  months  has 
been  inserted,  so  as  to  compel  prompt  action  by  the  senate  for  or  agrainst 
the  treaty.  If  against,  then  a  bill  for  annexation  will  be  introduced  into 
the  house  of  representatives,  and  carried  through  all  its  stages,  from  the 
simple  resolution  to  its  final  passage.  This  can  be  effected  by  a  bare  ma- 
jority vote,  like  what  is  required  for  any  other  bill,  and  not  a  two- thirds 
vote.  There  is  no  doubt  that  a  majority  of  the  house  would  go  for  annex- 
ation —  they  must,  to  secure  Van  Buren  in  the  south,  or  rather  to  prevent 
his  utter  extinguishment  there  — so  that  the  question  will  be  immediately 
fought  over  again  in  the  house,  if  negatived  in  the  senate.  Mr.  Tyler  has 
pledged  himself  to  call  an  extra  session  for  that  purpose  [as  I  stated  some 
weeks  back]  should  the  action  of  the  senate  require  it. 

'*  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  passage  of  such  a  bill  in  the  house  — 
such  an  event  would  be  unprecedented  but  not  unconstitutional,  and  the 
consent  of  the  senate  would  still  be  necessary  to  its  becoming  a  law.  It  is 
supposed  that  the  force  oi  public  opinion  after  such  an  ordeal  would  com- 
pel the  senate  to  succumb.  This  is  the  policy  pledged  to  be  followed  by 
the  friends  of  annexation  in  event  of  the  treaty  being  rejected  by  the  sen- 
ate—  it  is  taking  strong  ground,  and  shows  their  determination  to  effect 
their  objects."    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  132. 


678  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  tbxas. 

sentatives,  to  which  he  appended  all  the  documents  relating 
to  the  question,  including  those  from  which  the  senate  had 
not,  as  yet,  removed  the  seal  of  secrecy.  The  message  was 
in  irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  letter  of  Calhoun,  before 
referred  to,  to  the  cJiarye  d'affaires  in  Mexico,  and  with 
itself.  Tlie  secretary  of  state  had  said  that,  for  want  of 
time,  the  president  had  not  been  able  to  seek  a  previous  un- 
rlerstanding  with,  Mexico.-  The  president  himself  now  de- 
clared that  previous  negotiations  would  have  been  not  only 
fruitless,  but  that  they  would  have  been  an  offense  both  to 
Mexico  and  Texas.^  He  affirmed,  in  the  same  breath,  that 
such  negotiations  could  not  be  reconciled  with  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  independence  of  Texas  by  the  United  States,  and 
gave  expression  to  his  readiness  richly  to  compensate  for  any 
damage  which  Mexico  would  suffer  from  the  annexation.' 
But  there  had  been  already  so  much  of  contradiction  and 
sordid  sophistry  of  this  kind,  that  we  need  not  waste  any 
more  words  on  them.  Hence,  the  message  of  the  10th  of  June 
brought  the  question  into  an  entirely  new  stage,  because  it  was 
a  direct  appeal  by  the  president  from  the  senate  to  congress. 
There  was,  indeed,  no  express  provision  of  the  constitution 
in  conflict  with  this  appeal.  But  the  taking  of  it  by  the  ex- 
ecutive was  not  only  without  precedent,  but  it  was  unques- 
tionably opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution.  The 
constitution  confided  the  right  to  make  treaties  to  the  exec- 
utive cooperating  with  the  senate,  and  not  even  with  a 
simple  majority  of  the  senate,  but  with  a  two-thirds  majority 

* "  But  negotiation,  in  advance  of  annexation,  would  prove  not  only  truly 
abortive,  but  might  be  regarded  as  offensive  to  Mexico,  and  insulting  to 
Texas."    Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1472. 

*  "  Nor  could  we  negotiate  with  Mexico  for  Texas,  without  admitting 
that  our  recognition  of  her  independence  was  fraudulent,  delusive,  or  void. 
.  .  .  to  render  her  [Mexico],  in  a  word,  the  fullest  and  most  ample 
recompense  for  any  loss  she  might  convince  us  she  had  sustained  —  fully 
accords  with  feelings  and  views  the  executive  has  always  entertained." 


ANNEXATION  IMPEBATIVE.  679 

of  tliat  body.  But  a  majority  of  the  senate  even  greater 
than  this  had  rejected  the  treaty,  and  the  president,  in  oppo- 
sition to  this  decision,  called  upon  the  house  of  representa- 
tives, with  the  express  declaration  that  congress  should,  in 
another  way,  effect  the  same  thing  which  the  ratification  of 
the  treaty  would  have  effected.^  This  summons  was  accom- 
panied by  the  admission  that  a  treaty  would  indeed  have 
been  the  "  most  suitable "  way.'  Tyler  would  have  hardly 
been  able  to  deny  th.is,  even  if  he  had  not  taken  that  way 
first.  It  was  not  the  ambition  of  the  originators  of  the  con- 
stitution to  introduce  new  politico-diplomatic  inventions  into 
the  international  relations  of  the  Union;  and  treaties  have 
been,  from  time  immemorial,  the  form  in  which  independ- 
ent states  express  their  formal,  legally  binding  agreements 
on  important  matters.  But  what  sense  could  the  constitu- 
tion have  in  giving  the  treaty-right  to  the  president  and 
senate,  and,  at  the  same  time,  granting  authority  to  congress 
actually  to  exercise  that  same  right;  in  requiring  for  the 
direct  exercise  of  that  right  a  majority  of  two-thirds  of  the 
senate,  and  being  satisfied,  in  the  indirect  exercise  of  it  by 
congress,  with  a  simple  majority?  Tyler  had  a  simple  and 
crushing  answer  to  these  questions.  He  now  confessed,  be- 
fore the  entire  people  and  before  all  the  world:  how  we  shall 

'  "The  power  of  congress  is,  however,  fully  competent,  in  some  other 
form  of  proceeding,  to  accomplish  everything  that  a  formal  ratification  of 
the  treaty  could  have  accomplished,  and  I  therefore  feel  that  I  should  but 
imperfectly  discharge  my  duty  to  yourselves  or  the  country  if  I  failed  to  lay 
before  you  everything  in  the  possession  of  the  executive,  which  would  en- 
able you  to  act  with  full  Ught  on  the  subject,  if  you  should  deem  proper  to 
take  any  action  upon  it.'' 

•  "  .  .  .  while  I  have  regarded  the  annexation  to  be  accomplished 
by  treaty  as  the  most  suitable  form  in  which  it  could  be  effected,  should 
congress  deem  it  proper  to  resort  to  any  other  expedient  compatible  with 
the  constitution,  and  likely  to  accompUsh  the  object,  1  stand  prepared  to 
yield  my  most  prompt  and  active  cooperation." 


680  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

bring  annexation  about  is  a  matter  of  secondary  considera- 
tion; but  bring  it  about  we  must.' 

The  question,  indeed,  miglit  be  referred  to  congress  with- 
out encroaching  on  the  rights  of  the  senate,  and  without 
evading  the  provisions  of  the  constitution  on  the  treaty- 
right  This,  too,  was  tried  now;  only  Tyler  did  not  con- 
template this  mode.  On  the  same  day  on  which  Tyler  had 
sent  his  message  to  the  house  of  representatives,  Benton 
asked  permission,  in  the  senate,  to  introduce  a  bill  which 
might  meet  the  demands  of  those  who  agreed  with  the  pres- 
ident on  the  what yhut  who  did  not  look  upon  the  how,a.s  a 
matter  of  indifference.  The  president  was  to  be  empowered, 
by  a  law,  to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Mexico  and  Texas, 
in  relation  to  the  annexation,  and  on  the  foUowinor  basis: 
the  "state"  of  Texas  was  to  determine  its  own  limits,  but  it 
was  not  to  be  larger  than  the  largest  state  in  the  Union;  the 
remaining  territory  was  to  be  divided  as  nearly  as  possible 
equally  between  the  free  and  slave-holding  states;  Mexico's 
consent  might  be  disregarded  in  case  congress  should  con- 
sider it  proper  to  disregard  it.  Other  details  were,  so  far  as 
it  was  allowable,  to  be  regulated  by  treaty.' 

Both  Tyler's  plain  hints  and  Benton's  motions  were  a  pro- 
gramme drawn  up  for  the  future,  since  now,  on  account  of 
the  impending  close  of  the  session  in  a  few  days,  a  decision 
was  no  longer  possible.  As  a  matter  of  course,  the  time  to 
the  next  meeting  of  congress  was  not  spent  in  idle  waiting. 
Calhoun  made  haste  first  to  correct  the  gross  mistake  which 
he  had  fallen  into  in  his  letter  of  the  19tli  of  April  to  the 
secretary  of  legation,  Green,  who  had  officiated  as  chxirge 

'  "The  great  question  is,  not  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  shall  be  done, 
but  whether  it  shall  be  accomplished  or  not." 

'  1  have  mentioned  only  the  provisions  which  are  of  impoiiance  from  the 
standpoint  of  constitutional  law.  The  bill  is  printed  entu-e  in  Deb.  of 
Congr.,  XV,  p.  146. 


WILSON    SHANNON,   MINISTEE.  GSl 

d'affaires  in  Mexico,  until  the  post  of  minister  had  been  filled 
anew.'  Tlie  new  minister,  "Wilson  Shannon,  was  commis- 
sioned'^ to  intimate  to  the  Mexican  government,  that  it  had 
entirely  raisunderetood  the  overtures  which  had  been  made 
to  it  by  Green  in  accordance  with  that  instruction.  The 
general  assurance  was  repeated,  that  the  United  States  de- 
sired to  remain  friendly  and  at  peace,  but  the  idea  that  they 
had  wished  to  lower  themselves  to  acts  of  humiliation  or  ap- 
peasing declarations  was  repelled  in  an  excited  and  haughty 
tone.  On  the  other  hand,  a  long  list  of  old  and  new  com- 
plaints was  brought  forward  with  emphatic  severity.  Un- 
questionably as  the  balance  was  in  favor  of  Mexico,  when 
the  accounts  of  the  two  states  were  compared  with  one  an- 
other, it  could  not  be  contested  that  it  had  very  recently  been 
guilty  of  all  kinds  of  derelictions,  and  thus  played  effectually 

*  Waddy  Thompson  had  now  become  a  decided  opponent  of  annexation, 
for  the  reason  that  he  saw  in  it  jfreat  peril  to  the  slavocratic  interest.  He 
writes:  "  If  I  believed  that  abolition  either  was  or  would  become  beneficial 
or  necessaiy  for  the  south,  I  should  certainly  be  for  annexation,  as  the  most 
certain  and  best  mode  of  accomplishing  the  object.  I  am  finnly  persuaded, 
that  it  is  the  certain  and  inevitable  tendency  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  to 
promote  the  aboUtion  of  slavery  —  more  so,  indeed,  than  that  of  any  other 
measure  that  has  heretofore  been  proposed."  One  of  his  reasons  for  this 
idea  is  the  conviction  that  their  slaves  would  be  taken  away  from  all  the 
border  states :  "  Slave  labor  can  be  employed  m  Texas  with,  at  least,  twice 
the  profit  which  it  yields  in  the  average  of  the  slave  states  of  the  Union. 
Our  slaves  will  then  be  carried  to  Texas  by  the  force  of  a  law  as  great  and 
certain  as  that  by  which  water  finds  its  level.  The  slaves  will  very  soon 
disappear  from  Maryland,  Virginia.  North  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  Ken- 
tucky, and  in  a  period  very  short  for  such  an  operation  those  states  will 
become  non -slave-holding  states.  Whenever  that  is  the  case,  they  will  not 
only  no  longer  have  a  common  interest  with  the  remaining  slave-holding 
states,  but  will  very  soon  partake  of  that  fanatical  spirit  of  a  false  philan- 
thropy which  is  now  pervading  the  whole  world.  Thus  shall  we  lose  the 
most  important  of  our  allies  —  most  important  in  numerical  strength  at  the 
ballot-box,  still  more  impoitant  if  we  should  be  driven  to  the  cartouch-box 
as  our  last  defense."    The  Democratic  Review,  September,  1844,  p.  259. 

'  Instruction  of  the  20th  of  June,  1844.    Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  349-366. 


682  Jackson's  administkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

into  the  hands  of  the  annexationists.  Even  where  its  right 
was  as  clear  as  the  sun,  it  always  knew,  with  unfortunate 
skill,  how  to  give  its  urging  of  it  the  form  which  the  highest 
and  corapletest  utilization  of  its  cardinal  wrong — its  weak- 
ness, permitted. 

Anson  Jones,  the  Texan  secretary  of  state,  notified  the 
minister  of  the  United  States,  General  Howard,  on  the  6th 
of  August,  that  Mexico  intended  a  new  invasion,  and  called 
for  the  aid  promised  by  Murphy,  on  the  14th  of  February, 
and  by  Calhoun  on  the  11th  of  April.*  Howard,  in  his 
answer  of  the  same  date,  called  attention  to  the  fact,  that 
Murphy  had  been  disavowed  by  his  government,  and  re- 
marked that  Calhoun  had  confined  his  assurances  to  the 
time  during  which  the  treaty  of  annexation  was  pending.^ 
Calhoun,  in  a  letter  of  the  10th  of  September,  gave  his  ap- 
probation to  this  "  construction  "  of  the  two  letters  in  ques- 
tion. This,  however,  did  not  keep  him  from  giving  a  much 
more  liberal  interpretation  himself  to  his  promises.  The 
government  of  the  United  States  was  now  to  be  obliged  to 
protect  Texas  against  Mexico,  not  only  until  the  decision  on 
the  treaty  of  annexation,  but  while  the  question  of  annexa- 
tion was  pending.^  On  the  same  day.  Shannon  was  in- 
structed in  great  detail  what  he  had  to  do  to  perform  this 
"  obligation." 

General  "Woll,  who  commanded  the  Mexican  "Army  of  the 
North,"  had  announced  the  resumption  of  hostilities  against 
the  " department  of  Texas"  in  an  army  order  of  the  20th  of 

» Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  357,  358. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  361-863. 

»  "  But  he  instructs  you  to  assure  the  government  of  Texas  that  he  feels 
the  full  force  of  the  obligation  of  this  government  to  protect  Texas,  pend- 
ing the  question  of  annexation,  against  the  attacks  which  Mexico  may 
make  on  her,  in  consequence  of  her  acceptance  of  the  proposition  of  this 
government  to  open  negotiations  on  the  subject  of  annexing  Texas  to  the 
United  States.  As  far  as  it  relates  to  the  executive  department,  he  is  pre- 
pared to  use  all  its  powers  for  that  purpose."    Ibid,  p.  378. 


OENEBAI.  WQLL's  OBDBB.  ,    683 

June  which  reehed  with  blood:  whoever  maintained  any 
intercourse  with  Texas  or  came  within  a  mile  of  the  left 
bank  of  the  Kio  Bravo  was  to  be  shot,  conformably  to  mar- 
tial law,  and  whoever  fled  at  the  approach  of  the  Mexican 
troops  was  to  be  pursued  until  captured  or  killed.  It  was  so 
questionable,  whether  Mexico  would  be  in  a  condition  to  make 
even  an  attempt  at  invasion,  that  this  announcement  in  the 
main  could  be  looked  upon  only  as  a  monstrous  rodomontade 
of  impotent  rage.  But  it  might  readily  happen  that  occa. 
sions  might  offer  to  illustrate  it  practically  by  isolated  cases 
of  atrocity;  and  considering  the  experience  hitherto  had,  it 
was  not  to  be  hoped  that  such  occasions  would  not  be  taken 
advantage  of.  It  was,  therefore,  an  exaggeration,  when  many 
of  the  opponents  of  annexation,  and  especially  the  aboli- 
tionists, acted  as  if  WoU's  army  order  could  not  have  been 
properly  used  as  a  pretext  for  any  step  whatever  by  the 
government  of  the  Union.*  The  administration  certainly 
made  as  much  capital  as  possible  out  of  its  humanity  and 
moral  indignation;  but  it  is  just  as  certain  that  it  had  a 
right  and  had  reason  to  enter  its  protest  against  a  mode  of 
warfare  which  seemed  to  wish  to  take  the  barbarity  of  the 
Indians  for  its  model. 

But  Calhoun  did  not  stop  here.  Nay,  he  did  not  think  it 
necessary  to  put  this  in  the  foreground.  Although  he  began 
by  discharging  himself  at  length  on  the  "savage  ferocity" 
with  which  Mexico  intended  to  carry  on  the  war,  he  took 
care  to  allow  no  doubt  to  suggest  itself  that  the  intention  to 
renew  the  war  was,  in  itself,  the  main  thing.  He  deduces 
the  right  of  the  United  States  to  record  their  protest  not 
from  their  moral  obligation,  as  the  first  power  of  the  conti- 
nent, to  preserve  the  new  world  from  the  shame  and  the 
sorrow  of  such  horrors.    The  end  aimed  at  by  Mexico,  he 

'Thus,  for  instance,  Jay  says:  "The  threats  of  the  Mexicans  were, 
indeed,  idle  words."    Review  of  the  Mexican  "War,  p.  96. 


684  .Jackson's  admiotstkation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

made  the  basis  of  his  argument.  It  was  the  duty  of  the  Uinted 
States  to  Texas  —  and  the  protection  of  their  own  interests 
warranted  it  —  to  put  a  veto  on  the  resumption  of  hostilities, 
because  Mexico  wished  to  prevent  the  annexation.^  The 
senate  had  given  it  to  be  understood,  in  a  very  unam- 
biguous manner,  that  it,  at  least  in  what  concerned  the 
president's  independent  initiative,  did  not  share  the  opinion 
from  which  the  executive  had  inferred  his  authority  to  make 
the  promises  which  the  secretary  of  state  had  made  to  Texas  in 

*  "  Shall  we  stand  by  and  witness  in  silence  the  renewal  of  the  war  and 
its  prosecution  in  this  bloodthirsty  and  desolating  spirit?  In  order  to 
answer  it  fully  and  satisfactorily,  it  will  be  necessary  to  inquire  first  into 
her  object  for  renewing  the  war  at  this  time.  There  can  be  but  one,  and 
that  is,  to  defeat  the  annexation  of  Texas  to  our  Union.  She  knows  fuU 
weU  that  the  rejection  of  the  treaty  has  but  postponed  the  question  of  an- 
nexation. .  .  .  The  alternative  [for  Mexico]  is  to  drive  out  the  inhabitants 
and  desolate  the  country,  or  force  her  [Texas]  into  some  foreign  and  unnat- 
ural alliance.  .  .  .  Shall  we  stand  by  and  permit  it  to  be  consummated,  and 
thereby  defeat  a  measure  long  cherished,  and  indispensable  alike  to  the 
safety  and  welfare  of  the  United  States  and  Texas?  .  .  .  Shall  we  stand 
by  quietly  and  permit  Mexico  to  defeat  it,  without  making  an  effort  to 
oppose  her?  Shall  we,  after  this  long  and  continued  effort  to  annex  Texas, 
now  when  the  measure  is  about  to  be  consummated,  allow  Mexico  to  put 
it  aside,  perhaps  forever?  Shall  the  'golden  opportunity'  be  lost,  never 
again  to  return  ?  Shall  we  permit  Texas,  for  having  accepted  an  invitation, 
tendered  her  at  a  critical  moment,  to  join  us,  and  consummate  a  measure 
essential  to  their  and  our  permanent  peace,  welfare  and  safety,  to  be  deso- 
lated, her  inhabitants  to  be  butchered  or  driven  out;  or,  in  order  to  avert 
so  great  a  calamity,  to  be  forced,  against  her  will,  into  a  strange  alliance 
which  would  terminate  in  producing  lasting  hostilities  between  her  and  us, 
to  the  permanent  injury,  and  perhaps  the  ruin,  of  both?  The  president 
has  fully  and  deliberately  examined  the  subject,  and  has  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  honor  and  humanity,  as  well  as  the  welfare  and  safety  of  both 
countries,  forbid  it;  and  that  it  is  his  duty,  during  the  recess  of  congress, 
to  use  all  his  constitutional  means  in  opposition  to  it.  .  .  .  Entertaining 
these  views,  Mexico  would  make  a  great  mistake  if  she  should  suppose 
that  the  president  would  regard  with  indifference  the  renewal  of  the  wai- 
which  she  has  proclaimed  against  Texas,  Our  honor  and  our  interests  are 
both  involved." 


Calhoun's  position.  685. 

his  letter  of  the  11th  of  April.  In  consequence  of  this  Cal- 
houn now  avoided  declaring,  in  express  words,  that  Texas 
would  be  defended  by  force  of  arras.  Yet  the  declaration, 
that  the  United  States  would  feel  themselves  "highly  of- 
fended "  by  the  renewal  of  the  war,  and  that  they  would  not 
"  permit  it,"  could  be  look  upon  only  as  the  cautiously  para- 
plirased  threat  of  armed  intervention.  That  declaration 
certainly  imposed  no  obligation  on  the  Union,  and  it,  there- 
fore, could  not,  like  the  promises  of  the  letter  of  the  11th  of 
April,'  be  branded  as  a  directly  unconstitutional  usurpation; 
but  it  was,  notwithstanding,  a  bold  piece  of  arbitrariness. 
With  the  rejection  of  the  treaty  by  the  senate,  the  condition 
precedent  to  the  obligations  assumed  in  it,  according  to  Cal- 
houn's own  interpretation  of  the  letter  of  the  11th  of  April, 
disappeared.  Annexation,  as  a  question  from  which  inter- 
national obligations  and  rights  could  be  deduced,  had,  for 
the  moment,  ceased  to  exist,  for  no  new  obligations  had  been 
entered  into  with  Texas,  and  all  that  had  previously  hap- 
pened" was  brought  to  a  conclusion  by  the  senate  vote  of  the 
8th  of  June.  That  Tyler  had  thought  well,  in  his  message 
of  the  10th  of  June,  to  call  upon  the  house  of  representa- 
tives to  go  to  work  in  another  way,  and  that  Benton  had  in- 
troduced a  bill  into  the  senate  relating  thereto,  could  only 
prove  that  the  president  and  certain  members  of  congress 
still  desired  to  do  what  they  could  to  bring  annexation 
about.  The  "  government  of  the  United  States  "  was  not 
thereby  bound  in  any  way,  and,  oiBcially,  Texas  had  not  the 

>  Kent,  in  a  letter  of  May  21, 1844,  to  H.  L.  Raymond,  gives  his  weighty 
judgment  on  these,  to  the  effect:  "  You  will  perceive  that  the  impeach- 
ment power  over  '  high  crimes  and  misdemeanora'  is  very  broad,  as  de- 
fined and  practiced  under  the  sanction  of  the  common  law,  by  which  it  is 
to  be  construed  and  governed.  I  think  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
enormous  abuses  and  stretch  of  power  by  President  Tyler  afTord  ample 
materials  for  the  exerdse  of  the  power  of  impeachment,  and  an  impera- 
tive duty  in  the  house  of  representatives  to  put  it  in  practice."  Niles, 
LXVI,  p.  226. 


686  Jackson's  administeation — annexation  of  texas. 

least  to  do  with  it*  Hence,  there  was  no  justification  what- 
ever, on  the  basis  of  these  facts,  for  representing  the  question 
of  annexation  as  "  pending,"  in  the  sense  that,  from  sucli 
pendency,  the  Union  came  to  have  obligations  towards  Texas 
and  rights  in  relation  to  Mexico.'^  Calhoun's  argument 
amounted  to  this:  that  the  United  States  had  a  right,  and 
were  obliged,  to  forbid  Mexico  a  war  against  Texas,  so  long 

'  Ashbel  Smith  says  that  official  as  well  as  unofficial  Texas  had  now  only 
one  desire  —  peace;  and  that  the  fulfillment  of  the  wish  on  the  basis  of  the 
permanent  independence  of  Texas  was  prevented  only  by  an  accidental  cir- 
cumstance. In  June,  1844,  Lord  Aberdeen,  it  was  said,  had  proposed  t)  him : 
"  to  '  pass  a  diplomatic  act,'  in  which  five  powers  should  be  invited  to  par- 
ticipate, to  wit:  Great  Britain,  France,  the  United  States,  Texas  and  Mex- 
ico. The  basis  of  the  proposed  diplomatic  act  was  peace  between  Texas 
and  Mexico  and  the  permanent  separate  independence  of  Texas,  the  par- 
ties to  the  act  to  be  its  guarantors.  '  The  United  States  would  be  invited 
to  be  party  to  t\ie  act,  but  it  was  not  expected  that  they  would  accept  the 
invitation.'  It  was  believed  Mexico  would  participate,  but,  in  case  of  her 
refusal,  England,  France  and  Texas,  having  passed  the  act  as  between 
themselves,  Mexico  would  be  immediately  'forced  to  abide  its  terms.' 
The  act  if  passed  only  by  the  three  powers  would  not  be  abandoned,  it 
would  be  maintained."  France,  it  was  said,  acceded  to  Aberdeen's  pro- 
posal, and  Anson  Jones,  the  Texan  secretary  of  state,  had  been  commanded 
by  President  Houston  to  send  Smith  the  requisite  instructions.  Jones,  who 
had  been  chosen  next  president  of  the  republic,  did  not,  however,  obey  this 
order,  but  had  given  Smith  leave  of  absence  to  return  to  Texas.  The  mo- 
tive to  this  arbitrary  step  so  pregnant  with  consequences  was  the  desire  to 
reserve  for  his  own  administration  the  honor  and  merit  of  so  happy  a  dis- 
entanglement of  the  knot.  Reminiscences  of  the  Texas  Republic,  pp. 
61-65. 

*  "  .  .  .  The  president  would  be  compelled  to  regard  the  invasion 
of  Texas  by  Mexico,  while  the  question  of  annexation  is  pending,  as  highly 
oSfensive  to  the  United  States.  He  instructs  you,  accordingly,  to  ad- 
dress, without  delay,  to  the  proper  department  of  the  Mexican  govern- 
ment, a  communication,  in  which  you  will  state  the  views  entertained  by 
him  in  reference  to  the  renewal  of  the  war  while  the  question  of  annexation 
is  pending,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  to  be  conducted;  and  to  protest 
against  both,  in  strong  language,  accompanied  by  declarations  that  the 
president  cannot  regard  them  with  indifference,  but  as  highly  offensive  to 
the  United  States." 


MEXICO   AND   THE   PEOTEST.  687 

as  the  wish  for  annexation  had  not  entirely  vanished  in  them, 
and  so  long  as  expression  was  given  to  that  wish,  in  anyway 
whatever,  by  the  executive  or  in  congress. 

Mexico  repelled  the  protest  with  the  utmost  decision,  and 
even  allowed  itself  to  find  the  frequent  use  of  the  word  "  bar- 
barous," by  the  United  States,  not  quite  proper,  since  the  re- 
conquest  of  Texas  would  be  the  end  of  slavery  there,  while 
tlie  principal  object  of  annexation  was,  confessedly,  its  indefi- 
nite perpetuation.  Tyler  considered  this  attempt  to  sow  dis- 
satisfaction between  the  two  parts  of  the  Union  very  insult- 
ing. He  thought  that  this  disgraceful  language  would  war- 
rant the  severest  chastisement,  but  his  love  of  peace  caused 
him  to  be  satisfied  vnth  urgently  recommending  annexation 
once  more.*  His  love  of  peace,  however,  had  not  kept  him 
from  following  Jackson's  good  example.  "  Tlie  special  provi- 
dence over  the  United  States  and  little  children,"  as  the  abb^ 
Correa  says,  did  not  fail  this  time  either,  to  permit  a  report 
on  the  agitations  of  Mexican  agents  among  the  Indians,  to 
reach  Washington  at  the  right  time.  To  see  to  the  execu- 
tion of  the  treaty  of  the  5th  of  April,  1831,  with  Mexico, 

•  "The  extraordinary  and  highly  offensive  language  which  the  Mexican 
government  has  thought  proper  to  employ  in  reply  to  the  remonstrance  of 
the  executive,  through  Mr.  Shannon,  against  the  renewal  of  the  war  with 
Texas  while  the  question  of  annexation  was  pending  before  congress  and 
the  people,  and  also  the  proposed  maimer  of  conducting  that  war,  will  not 
fail  to  arrest  your  attention.    .    .    . 

"  A  course  of  conduct  such  as  has  been  described  on  the  part  of  Mexico, 
in  violation  of  all  friendly  feeling,  and  of  the  courtesy  which  should  char- 
acterize the  intercourse  between  the  nations  of  the  earth,  might  well  justify 
the  United  States  in  a  resort  to  any  measures  to  vindicate  their  national 
honor;  but  actuated  by  a  sincere  desire  to  preserve  the  general  peace,  and 
in  view  of  the  present  condition  of  Mexico,  the  executive,  resting  upon  its 
integrity,  and  not  fearing  but  that  the  judgment  of  the  world  will  duly  ap- 
preciate its  motives,  abstains  from  recommending  to  congress  a  resort  to 
meamires  of  redress,  and  contents  itself  with  reurging  upon  that  body 
prompt  and  immediate  action  on  the  suto'ect  of  annexation."  Message  of 
Dec.  18,  1844;  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  pp.  1493,  1495. 


688  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Calhoun,  therefore,  on  the  17th  of  September,  that  is  a  few 
days  after  the  protest,  authorized  the  entry  of  the  Union 
troops  into  Texas,  as  soon  as  the  latter  should  desire  it.^ 

In  the  Will te  House,  therefore,  the  doctrine  inherited  from 
the  preceding  administrations,  in  relation  to  the  question  of 
annexation,  that  as  many  arrows  as  possible  should  he  kept  in 
the  quiver,  was  taken  very  well  to  heart.  But,  on  this  very 
account,  it  was  seen  with  the  utmost  clearness  that  the  de- 
cision would  have  to  be  looked  for  in  the  electoral  campaign. 

Even  before  the  rejection  of  the  treaty,  the  southern  "fire- 
eaters"  had  spoken  in  the  highest  strain.  In  "private  let- 
ters" which  were,  of  course,  intended  to  receive  as  wide  a 
circulation  as  possible,  and  in  public  speeches,  things  were 
uttered  in  which  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  distinguish  where 
fool-hardy  arrogance  stopped  and  the  undissembled  insanity 
of  the  slavocratic  monomania  began.  Thus,  for  instance, 
one  of  these  private  letters,  from  Alabama,  declared  that  the 
rejection  of  the  treaty  would  be  an  evident  breach  of  the 
compact  of  the  constitution.^  The  writer  proposed  a  con- 
vention of  the  slave  states  to  resolve  on  the  annexation  of 
Texas  by  the  southwestern  states,  in  case  it  was  refused  by 
the  Union.  The  president  was  to  be  required  to  call  a  meet- 
ing of  congress  without  delay,  to  leave  the  free  states  the 
choice  between  annexation  and  the  peaceable  dissolution  of 
the  Union.  Tlie  declaration  that  the  south  would  rather  let 
the  Union  than  Texas  go,  became  more  and  more  frequent 
and  emphatic'  On  motion  of  General  James  Hamilton, 
a  meeting   in   Russell    county,   Alabama,   on  the    8th    of 

'  Calhoun  to  Donelson,  Calb.'s  "Works,  V,  pp.  376,  377. 

* "  .  .  .  if  it  turn  out  that  the  senate  reject  the  treaty,  a  plain  case 
of  an  infraction  of  the  compact  will  have  arisen,  when  the  slave  states  will 
be  justified  in  the  eyes  of  posterity,  and  an  impartial  world,  in  resorting  to 
the  ultimate  appeal,  if  necessary."    Niles,  LXVI,  p.  229. 

*  A  considerable  number  of  such  resolutions  is  printed  in  Niles,  LXVI, 
pp.  230,  313,  405. 


THE   RICHMOND   CONVENTION.  689 

JviTie,  resolved  on  the  formal  calling  of  a  convention  of  the 
southern  states,  at  Richmond,  on  the  third  Monday  of  Octo- 
ber.' The  object  of  the  convention  was  to  be  the  prevention  of 
the  threatened  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  this  object  was 
to  be  attained  by  the  overthrow  or  muzzling  of  all  opposi- 
tion to  slavery  and  the  slave-holding  interest.  An  address 
of  the  whigs  of  Richmond  ^  very  emphatically  intimated  to 
the  saviors  of  the  Union,  that  they  would  have  to  look  for 
some  other  place  for  their  experiment  to  save  the  house 
from  fire,  by  burning  it  down.  Jt  had  not  gone  so  far  yet 
in  Virginia.  Even  Ritchie  himself,  in  his  Richmond  En- 
quirer, thought  it  best  to  correct  all  the  resolutions  of  his 
over-fiery  fellow- thinkers,  by  striking  out  of  them  every- 
tliiiig  that  savored  of  treasonable  views.  He  forgot,  how- 
ever, to  inform  his  readers  that  he  had  allowed  himself  to 
make  such  corrections.  Hence  his  assurance  that,  in  making 
them,  he  had  desired  only  to  give  expression  to  his  disap- 
probation, found  no  credence  among  the  whigs.  They  called 
the  corrections  forgeries  intended  to  keep  the  moderate  an- 
nexationists from  becoming  timid.  It  might  be  said  in  favor 
of  this  view,  that  the  project  of  a  convention  received  the 
same  reception  in  other  places  as  was  accorded  to  it  by  the 
whigs  of  Richmond.  When  it  was  intended  to  bestow  on 
Xashville  the  honor  of  extending  a  hospitable  welcome  to 
the  convention,  a  mass  meeting  very  decidedly  declined  it. 
It  availed  the  "  Polk  Central  Committee  of  Tennessee " 
nothing,  that  it  gave  its  assurance  that  there  was  no  thought 
of  holding  a  '•  sectional  convention,"  but  that  the  intention  - 
was  rather  to  celebrate  a  "  national  holiday." '  The  distrust 
and  displeasure  grew  to  such  proportions  that  the  party 
leaders  thought  well  to  smother  up  the  whole  convention 

'  Ibid.,  p.  313,  the  very  instructive  resolutions  are  printed  in  fulL 
»Ibid.,  pp.  404r406. 
'Ibid.,  p.  326. 
44 


690  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

project  as  far  as  possible,  and,  so  far  as  it  could  be  at  all 
done,  to  deny  it,  as  if  it  had  never  been  thought  of.  The 
violent  excitement,  on  both  sides,  was,  indeed,  not  feigned; 
but  propagandism  neither  for  nor  against  annexation  could 
be  paade,  by  means  of  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Before 
admission  could  be  obtained  for  this  thought  in  bitter  earnest- 
ness, it  was  necessary  that  what  now  only  a  minority  recog- 
nized as  the  simply  inevitable  consequences  of  this  extension 
of  the  slave-territory,  should  have  become  facts. 

The  south  had  a  much  more  efficient  instrument  of  ter- 
rorism against  its  northern  vassals.  It  now  made  them  pay 
dearly  for  their  heresies  in  the  economic  policy  of  the  coun- 
try. "  Texas  or  the  disruption  of  the  Union  "  did  not  avail; 
but,  with  many,  "  Texas  or  the  abolition  of  the  tariff  of 
1842  "  had  a  great  effect.  There  was  a  large  circle  of  peo- 
ple who  entertained  an  entirely  honest  repugnance  for  slav- 
ery, but  of  whom  it  could  not  be  said  that  they  would,  as 
yet,  make  any  considerable  material  sacrifices  in  the  struggle 
against  it.  They  found  themselves  prepared  to  do  this,  only 
when  they  had  come  to  recognize  that  they  were  face  to 
face  not  simply  with  an  abstract  moral  question,  but  that 
slavery  was  sitting  bodily  by  their  own  hearths;  that  it  was 
not  only  making  bondsmen  of  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren, but  that  it  was  eating  up  the  fruits  of  their  labor  and 
the  inheritance  of  their  children,  with  increasing  greed. 

Party  passion  was  just  as  effective  as  the  watchword: 
Texas  or  a  new  tariff!  given  out  by  Walker.  The  number 
of  those  is  everywhere  small,  who  are  always  conscious  that 
party  is  only  a  means  towards  the  attainment  of  certain  ends, 
and  that  it  is  not  its  own  end.  Party  spirit  has  permeated 
the  whole  of  political  life  in  the  United  States  more  than 
anywhere  else.  Hence  it  is,  that  there,  more  than  any- 
where else,  party  has  acquired  in  the  imaginations  of  people 
as  existence  independent  of  the  individuals  constituting  it. 


PAKTY   SPIRIT  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES.  691 

Party  is  the  political  church.  The  traditions  and  programmes 
of  parties  have  something  of  the  binding  force  of  dogmas. 
Not  only  on  grounds  of  expediency,  but  also  on  grounds  of 
political  ethics,  limits  have  to  be  put  to  the  freedom  of  indi- 
vidual judgment  in  its  relation  to  party,  so  far  as  that  judg- 
ment finds  expression  in  acts;  and  these  limits  are  not 
permitted  to  be  very  wide.  The  priests  of  political  ortho- 
doxy are  not  unfrequently  turned  away  from  angrily  or  with 
contempt;  but  continuance  in  the  congregation  of  the  ortho- 
dox is  worth  great  sacrifices  of  one's  own  convictions.  As 
the  Roman  church  has  ventured  to  throw  the  insult  of  papal 
infallibility  into  the  face  of  healthy  common  sense,  although 
it  could  not  deny  that  the  papal  chair  has  been  disgraced  by 
common  criminals  who  would  have  deserved  the  gibbet  and 
the  wheel ;  so,  in  the  -United  States,  the  leaders  of  parties 
may,  and  frequently  with  success,  impute  to  people  the  sanc- 
tioning, for  party's  sake,  of  that  which,  as  individuals,  they 
would  obviously  have  condemned  unconditionally  and  in  the 
severest  manner. 

Tyler  set  a  good  example  of  self-sacrifice  to  the  dissatis- 
fied. He  withdrew  his  name  from  the  list  of  presidential 
candidates,  on  the  20th  of  August,  in  order  to  prevent  the 
splitting  up  of  annexationist  votes.^  The  sacrifice  he  thns 
made  was,  indeed,  not  great.  He  was  at  last  obliged  to 
convince  himself  that  his  candidacy  was  completely  hope- 
less, and  even  if  the  democrats  did  not  treat  him  courteously, 
and  frequently  not  even  with  leniency,  they  had  not  endeav- 
ored systematically  and  violently,  like  the  whigs,  to  brand 
him  as  a  man  without  honor,  and  as  a  traitor.     Every  per- 

'  NilM,  LXVI,  pp.  416-418.  In  the  letter  of  resignation  we  may  read, 
but  only  between  the  lines,  that  this  was  his  chief  motive.  He,  however, 
expressly  says  that  the  question  of  annexation  was  one  of  the  grounds  of 
his  acceptance  of  the  candidacy:  "I  had  also  an  indistinct  hope  that  the 
great  question  of  the  annexation  of  Texas  might,  in  some  degree,  be  ood- 
trolled  by  the  position  I  occupied." 


692  Jackson's  ADMINISTRATION  —  annexation  op  texas, 

sonal  consideration,  therefore,  nrged  him  to  throw  himself 
again  nnreservedlj  into  the  arms  of  his  first  political  love, 
even  if  he  could  not  hope  that  she  would  forgive  and  forget 
his  previous  infidelity,  for  the  sake  of  what  was,  under  the 
circumstances,  a  great  service. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  real  sacrifice  was  imputed  to  those 
democrats  who  would  either  hear  nothing  at  all  of  annexa- 
tion, or,  at  least,  not  under  existing  circumstances.  The 
right  had  never  as  yet  been  conceded  to  a  nominating  conven- 
tion to  invent  new  articles  of  faith  for  parties  at  pleasure. 
But  the  great  majority  of  the  delegates  to  the  Baltimore 
convention  had  been  chosen  without  any  regard  to  Texas. 
The  adoption  of  annexation  in  the  platform  was,  therefore, 
a  bold  usurpation,  which  was  by  no  means  binding  on  the 
party.  There  were  to  be  found,  even  among  the  northern 
democrats,  men  who  would  not  submit  without  any  more 
ado  to  this  arbitrary  rule  of  the  wire-pullers.  The  opposi- 
tion assumed  the  most  threatening  attitude  precisely  in  l^ew 
York,  which,  at  best,  was  very  doubtful  and  yet  exceedingly 
weighty,  because  of  the  large  number  of  its  electoral  votes. 
Among  its  leaders,  the  poet,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  pub- 
lisher of  the  Evening  Post,  deserves  special  mention.  Yet, 
they  were  not  able  so  far  to  conquer  themselves  as  to  say 
good-bye  to  the  party  whose  immense  majority  the  con- 
vention now  followed.  They  thought  out  a  compromise 
which  makes  their  attachment  to  the  party  and  their  power 
of  invention  appear  in  the  best  light,  but  which  left  them  no 
choice  but  to  see  either  their  political  intelligence  or  their 
fidelity  to  their  convictions  called  in  question.  They  formally 
and  solemnly  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  an- 
nexation paragraph  of  the  platform,  but  they  voted  for  Polk, 
who  owed  his  nomination  simply  to  the  fact  that  he  was  an 
unconditional  annexationist.^    They  quieted  their  conscience, 

>  See  his  letter  of  the  23d  of  April,  1844,  to  S.  P.  Chase,  Th.  Heaton,  etc 
Nilea,  LXVI,  pp.  228,  229. 


THE   POWEB   OF   PABTY.  693 

on  this  point,  by  the  demand  that  only  men  opposed  to  an- 
nexation should  be  elected  to  congress.^  But  so  little  was 
the  slavery  question  understood,  even  yet,  that  honorable 
men  who  had  grown  grey  in  political  battles,  were  able  to 
bring  themselves  to  believe  that  this  expedient  could  actu- 
ally amount  to  something  different  from  this:  "  I  am  inno- 
cent of  the  blood  of  this  just  man ;  see  ye  to  it." 

If  the  ties  of  party  proved  too  strong  for  those  who  fol- 
lowed no  selfish  ends,  it  could,  of  course,  not  be  difficult  to 
maintain  discipline  among  those  professional  politicians  to 
whom  politics  was,  in  a  greater  or  lesser  degree,  a  means  to- 
wards the  prosecution  of  their  personal  interests.  T^e  theory 
of  the  spoils  was  so  firmly  rooted  that  there  was  no  need 
now  of  much  effort  to  do  this.  As  early  as  July,  1843,  be- 
fore Texas  had  been  made,  officially,  the  order  of  the  day, 
two  leading  organs  of  both  parties  had  proclaimed,  in  praise- 
worthy unison,  the  necessity  of  proscribing  "  the  pestiferous 
and  demoralizing  brood  "  who  had  not  sold  themselves  bod- 
ily to  the  one  party  or  the  other.'    It  was  a  piece  of  super- 

'  "  Was  it  [the  party  at  the  north]  to  reject  the  nominations  and  aban- 
don the  contest,  or  should  it  support  the  nominations,  rejecting  the  unten- 
able doctrine  interpolated  at  the  convention,  and  takings  care  that  their 
support  should  be  accompanied  with  such  an  expression  of  their  opinion  as 
to  prevent  its  beingf  misinterpreted?  The  latter  alternative  has  been  pre- 
ferred, and  we  think  wisely;  for  we  conceive  that  a  proper  expression  of 
their  opinion  will  save  their  votes  from  misconstruction,  and  that  proper 
efforts  will  secure  the  nomination  of  such  members  of  congress  as  will  re- 
ject the  unwarrantable  scheme  now  pressed  upon  the  country."  Ibid.,  p. 
371.  The  "  confidential "  circular  signed,  besides  by  Bryant,  by  G.  P.  Bar* 
ker,  J.  W.  Edmonds,  D.  D.  Field,  Th.  Sedgwick,  Th.  W.  Tucker  and  J. 
Townsend. 

'  "  The  Globe  "  writes:  "  The  democracy  should  guard  itself  at  every 
point;  and  especially  against  the  advances  of  the  nondescripts  —  the  no- 
party  men  —  who  are  uniformly  venal,  and  take  an  attitude  to  hold  the 
balance  of  power  between  parties,  so  as  to  be  able  to  sell  themselves,  and 
sacrifice  the  honest  cause  to  the  speculators  in  politics."    To  this  '*  Th* 


694  JAOKSON's  administration annexation  of  TEXAS. 

fluous  caution  in  The  Richmond  Enquirer,  after  the  election 
of  the  electors,  to  notify  once  more  the  anti-annexationist 
democrats  expressly,  that  they  were  entirely  excluded  from 
all  share  in  the  spoils.^ 

The  electoral  battle  was  fought  on  both  sides  with  the 
greatest  energy,  but  on  the  side  of  the  democrats,  in  part,  with 
that  criminal  ruthlessness  which  had  so  frequently  put  the  na- 
tion's honor  to  shame  in  the  Texas  trade.     Tlie  Clay  electors 

Richmond  Whig  "  answered :  "  Regarding  '  The  Globe '  as  the  exponent  of 
the  democratic  party,  we  hail  this  expression  of  opinion  with  high  satis- 
faction. The  whigs,  we  believe,  have  long  since,  and  with  great  mianim- 
ity,  determined  that  they  will  no  longer  give  rewards  to  such  characters, 
nor  permit  themselves  to  be  preyed  upon  by  them.  A  similar  determina- 
tion was  only  wanting  from  the  democracy,  to  render  cow-boyism  in  poli- 
tics so  unprofitable  as  to  be  abandoned  by  universal  consent.  .  .  .  Now 
that  hostilities  are  raging  between  the  captain  [Tyler]  and  the  right  wing 
of  the  democracy,  and  the  latter  is  sufiFering  severely  from  the  defection  of 
its  forces  to  the  quarters  of  the  cow-boys,  'The  Globe'  formally  anathe- 
matizes the  whole  gang  as  public  plunderers  and  pirates  —  hostes  humani 
generis,  who  are  entitled  to  no  favor  or  mercy  from  any  honest  man.  We 
shake  hands  with  '  The  Globe '  on  this.  We  concur  with  it  heartily  in  de- 
siring the  extermination  of  this  pestiferous  and  demoralizing  brood,  and 
will  do  whatever  we  can  to  effect  it.  As  soon  as  the  the  government  shall 
get  over  its  present  syncope,  it  will  be  in  the  power  either  of  the  whigs  or 
democrats  to  apply  a  remedy  in  the  premises.  In  the  mean  time  by  the  co- 
operation of  both  of  them,  they  can,  to  a  very  great  extent,  protect  each 
other  and  prevent  themselves  from  being  preyed  upon  by  the  cow-boys. 
In  all  state  appointments  they  may  do  this  most  effectually;  for  the  whigs 
and  democrats  together  compose  four- fifths  of  every  state  legislature  in  the 
Union.  Let  them  everywhere  resolve  that  the  gentry,  who  are  too  pure  to 
associate  with  either  of  them,  or  to  belong  to  either  party,  shall  not  use 
them  to  their  own  individual  aggrandizement.  Let  them  act  on  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  whig  or  the  democrat  who  has  sense  enough  to  form  an 
opinion,  and  honesty  enough  to  avow  it,  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  imbecile, 
or  the  purist  or  the  mercenary  who  cannot  come  to  a  decision,  or  is  ashamed 
of  his  principles,  or,  from  sordid  considerations,  is  afraid  to  declare  them." 
Ibid.,  LXIV,  p.  331. 

' "  We  rejoice  that  those  deserting  democrats  who  oppose  this  vital  meas- 
ure which  Mr.  Polk  so  anxiously  desires  to  be  settled  at  this  session,  will 
have  nothing  to  expect  from  his  administration  " 


FUTDBE    PRESTOENTS.  695 

received  abont  twenty-two  thousand  votes  more  than  Har- 
rison, in  1840,  and  yet  Polk  was  elected  by  an  electoral  vote 
of  one  hundred  and  seventy  against  one  hundred  and  five.* 
The  whigs  had  confidently  calculated  on  victory  up  to  the  last 
moment,  and  their  defeat  stnick  them  like  lightning  from  a 
clear  sky.  The  party  was  threatened  with  total  demoraliza- 
tion. In  the  slave  states,  it  seemed  as  if  it  would  be  entirely 
dissolved,''  and,  in  the  north,  it  was  deeply  concerned  as  to 
what  it  could  hope  from  the  future,  now  that  Clay,  notwith- 
standing the  absence  of  unity  in  the  camp  of  the  enemy, 
could  be  beaten,  spite  of  the  fact  that  "Webster  and  his  party 
had  supported  him  with  all  their  energy.  And  people  did 
not  stop  here.  The  result  of  the  election  appeared  almost  as 
something  accessory,  in  face  of  the  circumstances  attending 
it,  and  which,  from  the  very  first  moment,  diverted  attention 
from  the  specific  interest  of  the  parties  to  a  whole  series  of 
problems,  which,  entirely  independent  of  that  interest,  con- 
ditioned the  weal  and  woe  of  the  nation. 

In  one  of  the  numerous  letters  of  condolence  sent  to  Clay, 
the  conviction  is  expressed,  that  a  man  of  really  towering 
ability  would  never  again  fill  the  presidential  chair.'    In  this 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  201.  I  can  say  no  more  in  the  text  on  the  pop- 
ular vote,  since  the  data  in  the  sources  at  my  command  deviate  widely  from 
one  another.  Benton,  Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  p.  625,  ascribes  to  Polk 
1,536,196  votes,  and  to  Clay  1,297,912.  Statesm.'s  Man..  II,  p.  15*5,  gives 
almost  the  same  figure  (1,297,033) -for  Clay,  but  for  Polk  only  1,335,834. 
Sargent,  Public  Men  and  Events,  II,  p.  251,  gives  Polk  1,327,823,  and 
aay  1,288,533,  etc. 

'  W.  C.  Preston,  the  former  senator  of  South  Carolina,  writes  to  Clay 
on  the  23d  of  November,  1844:  **  For  the  present  the  whig  party  of  the 
south  is  dispersed;  and  we  can  not  know  our  position  until  the  heat  and 
smoke  of  the  conflict  have  passed  away."    Priv.  Correap.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  503. 

' "  The  result  of  this  election  has  satisfied  me  that  no  such  man  as  Henry 
Clay  can  ever  be  president  of  the  United  States.  The  party  leaders,  the 
men  who  make  presidents,  will  never  consent  to  elevate  one  greatly  their 
superior;  they  suffer  too  much  by  the  contrast;  their  aspirations  are  checked; 
their  power  is  circumscribed;  the  clay  cannot  be  moulded  into  an  idol  suited 


696  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

there  was  onl}'  too  much  truth.  But  the  comparison  be- 
tween Claj  and  Polk  is  not  the  first  thing  which  should  have 
Jed  to  this  conclusion.  The  whigs,  in  1840,  had  preferred 
Harrison  to  Clay,  and  it  ill  became  them  now  to  cast  stones 
at  the  democrats.  However,  the  proof  now  given  that  the 
personal  qualifications  of  the  candidate  were  very  indifferent, 
so  far  as  his  success  was  concerned,  and  that  statesmen  would 
have  to  strike  their  sails  before  the  routine  politicians  who 
delivered  themselves  up  completely  to  be  party  tools,  was 
more  forcible  than  it  had  ever  been  before;  for  it  was  un- 
doubted that  the  whigs  also,  would  not  again,  after  this  ex- 
perience, make  an  attempt  to  take  the  field  under  the 
leadership  of  their  most  distinguished  men. 

Mediocrity  had  almost  become  a  monopoly  without  which 
one  was  not  entitled  to  the  highest  office  of  the  nation;  the 
property  and  intelligent  classes  began  to  doubt  whether 
they  would  ever  again  obtain  the  controlling  influence  in  the 
country;  and  even  in  the  great  crowd,  the  native  population 
were  so  nearly  evenly  balanced  that  there  was  fear  lest  the 
weight  which  turned  the  scales  might  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  adopted  citizens,  who  were  politically  entirely  immature. 
Such  were  the  fruits  which  the  radicalization  of  the  democracy 
had  ripened.  The  affirmation  that  "  nine-tenths  of  the  virtue, 
intelligence  and  respectability  of  the  nation  had  voted  for 
Clay,"  is  an  exaggeration.^  But,  without  question.  Clay  would 

to  their  worship.  Moreover,  a  statesman,  prominent  as  you  have  been  for 
so  long  a  time,  must  have  been  identified  with  all  the  leading  measures 
affecting  the  interests  of  the  people,  and  those  interests  are  frequently  dif- 
ferent in  the  several  parts  of  our  widely  extended  country.  What  is  meat 
in  one  section  is  poison  in  another.  Give  me,  therefore,  a  candidate  of  an 
inferior  grade,  one  whose  talents,  patriotism  and  public  services  have  never, 
been  so  conspicuous  as  to  force  him  into  the  first  ranks.  He  will  get  all 
the  votes  which  the  best  and  wisest  man  could  secure,  and  some  which,  for 
the  reasons  1  have  stated,  he  could  not."  Priv.  C!orresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  608. 
'  Priv.  Corresp.,  p.  497.  In  the  letter  of  condolence  ahready  cited,  we 
read:     "  Nine-tenths  of  our  respectable  citizens  [in  New  York]  voted  for 


COMPLAINT   OF  THB  WHIOS.  697 

liave  come  forth  victor  from  the  electoral  campaign,  if  it 
had  been  possible  to  weigh  the  votes.  What  did  the  votes 
of  the  "  white  trash  "  of  the  south  weigh  against  those  of  the 
farmers  of  New  England?  What  moral  weight  could  those 
votes  claim  which  were  allowed  the  southern  states  for  tlieir 
slaves?  How  did  those  of  the  native  merchants,  manufac- 
turers and  tradesmen  of  the  north  compare  with  those  of  the 
Irish  day  laborers  who  had  voted  without  exception  for  Polk? 
The  complaint  of  the  whigs,  however,  was  not  only  that 
the  vote  of  the  basest  vagabond  was  worth  exactly  as  much 
as  that  of  the  wisest  and  most  virtuous  man,  and  that  that 
of  the  millionaire  weighed  not  a  grain  more  than  that  of  the 
most  ignorant  beggar  —  that  is,  that  the  actual  situation  had 
completely  conformed  itself  to  the  state  of  the  law;  and  that 
this  fact  had  turned  to  the  advantage  of  their  opponents  ex- 
clusively; but  they  claimed  also  that,  spite  of  all  this,  Clay 
would  have  become  Tyler's  successor  if  only  the  legal  votes 
cast  had  been  counted.  The  same  charge  had  been  lodged, 
four  years  before,  against  the  whigs  by  the  democrats,  and 
we  have,  heard  it  said,  by  witnesses  beyond  suspicion,  that 
both  parties  had  been  guilty  of  electoral  frauds.  But  unques- 
tionably what  was  now  done  in  this  respect  was  so  great 
that  all  that  had  been  done  previously  seemed  very  harmless 
when  compared  with  it*     Especially  in  Louisiana  and  in 

Clay  and  Frelinghuysen,  the  mercliants,  the  professional  men,  the  mechan- 
ics and  working  men,  all  such  as  live  by  their  skill  and  the  labor  of  their 
hands,  who  have  wives  whom  they  cherish  and  children  whom  they  strive 
to  educate  and  make  good  citizens,  men  who  go  to  church  on  Sundays,  re- 
spect the  laws  and  love  their  country,  such  men  to  the  number  of  twenty- 
six  thousand  three  hundred  and  eighty-five  redeemed  their  pledge  to  God 
and  the  country;  but  alas!  the  numerical  strength  lies  not  in  those  classes. 
Foreigners  who  have  '  no  lot  or  inheritance  '  in  the  matter,  have  robbed 
us  of  our  birth-right;  the  *  scepter  has  departed  from  IsraeL'  Ireland  has 
re-conquered  the  country  which  England  lost." 

'  Adams  now  writes  to  Clay:    *'  I  had  hoped  that  under  your  guidance 
the  country  would  have  recovered  from  the  downward  tendency  into  which 


698   JAOKSOn's  administration AJ^NEXATION  of  TEXAS. 

Kew  York  ^  was  tlie  business  carried  on  systematically  and 
on  the  most  enormous  scale.     It  cpuld  not  be  proved  that 

it  has  been  sinking.  But  the  glaring  frauds  by  which  it  was  consummated 
afford  a  sad  presentiment  of  what  must  be  expected  hereafter."  Priv. 
Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  520.  In  a  private  letter  of  B.  Johnson  Barbour  to 
Clay,  we  read:  "  Double-dealing,  defamation  and  slanders  are  still  omnipo- 
tent. A  motley  party,  without  principle  or  principles,  with  fraud  for  the 
means  and  the  election  of  a  demagogue  for  the  end,  have  triumphed. 
Domestic  corruption  and  foreign  putrescence  coalesced  to  overwhelm  the 
virtue  and  honesty  of  the  country.  Plaquemine  and  Tammany  have  stifled 
the  voice  of  the  American  people,  and  the  late  contest  has  only  established 
the  melancholy  facts  that  frauds  upon  the  ballot  box  have  perfect  impunity, 
that  mediocrity  is  merit,  and  that  every  excess  may  be  committed  in  the 
name  of  a  spurious  democracy."  Priv.  Corresp.  of  H.  Clay,  p.  523.  Com- 
pare ibid.,  pp.  497,  502,  511,  526. 

'  "The  first  state  election  which  took  place,  and  tested  the  strength  of 
parties  therein,  was  that  of  Louisiana.  The  contest  was  carried  on  with 
all  the  energy  of  hope  and  desperation.  Force  and  fraud  were  freely  re- 
sorted to,  but  in  spite  of  these  the  whigs  carried  the  state.  At  the  presi- 
dential election,  however,  the  famous,  or  infamous,  '  Plaquemine  frattds  ' 
gave  the  electoral  vote  to  Mr.  Polk.  These  frauds  were  the  work  of  the 
afterwards  distinguished  rebel,  John  Slidell.  He  had  made  a  bet  with 
Gen.  Barrow  upon  the  presidential  election  in  that  state,  which,  if  the 
election  was  not  fraudulent,  he  had  fairly  won;  but  he  never  claimed  the 
bet.  '  If  he  had,'  said  Gen.  Barrow  to  me,  '  I  should  have  held  him  to  a 
personal  responsibility  as  the  author  of  these  frauds;  and  this  he  well 
knew  was  my  intention.'  The  fraud  simply  consisted  in  taking  down  to 
Plaquemine,  from  New  Orleans,  two  steamboats  loaded  with  as  rough  and 
villainous  a  crowd  of  rascals  as  oould  be  picked  up  in  and  about  the  wharves 
and  purlieus  of  the  city,  to  vote  '  early  and  often.'  All  votes  were  required 
to  be  handed  in  unfolded,  and  if  any  one  was  for  the  whig  candidates  for 
electors,  it  was,  if  possible,  rejected.  It  was  dangerous  for  a  whig  to  be 
on  tlie  ground.    The  vote  at  this  parish  had  been  as  follows : 

1840.       1842.       1843. 

Whig 40  93  34 

Democratic 250         179         306 

Never  so  high  as  three  hundi-ed  and  fifty.  But  at  this  election  (1844) 
Polk  had  a  majority  of  nine  hundred  and  seventy!  Many,  if  not  most,  of 
those  who  voted  at  Plaquemine  on  Wednesday  had  voted  in  New  Orleans 
on  Monday;  those  who  had  not  were  foreigners,  non-residents,  etc.,  not 
having  a  right  to  vote.  Now,  as  Polk  canned  the  state  by  a  majority  of 
six  hundred  and  ninety  only,  it  is  very  easy  to  see  where  it  came  from  and 


ELECnON   FBAUDS.  699 

Polk  owed  Lis  election  to  these  frauds,  and  such  perhaps 
was  not  the  case.  But  it  cannot  be  contested  that  thej  had 
grown  to  be  so  numerous  that  the  difference  in  the  real 
strength  of  the  parties  needed  to  be  diminished  only  by  a 
minimum,  in  order,  if  this  prostitution  of  the  right  of  suf- 
frage continued,  to  destroy  every  moral  guaranty  that  the 
incumbent  of  the  presidency  was  really  the  president  elected. 
But  if  it  actually  ever  came  to  tliis,  there  remained  only  one 
alternative:  either  for  the  Union  to  fall  beyond  redemption 
into  a  condition  similar  to  that  of  Mexico,  or  for  the  people 
to  summon  all  their  strength,  intellectual  and  moral,  to 
scourge  the  corrupt  trading  politicians  out, of  the  temple, 
and  to  proceed  energetically  and  circumspectly  to  the  re- 
moving of  the  defects  in  the  principle  of  their  political  sys- 
tem, out  of  which  the  despotic  rule  of  this  wicked  band  had 
grown. 

Plainly,  it  had  not  yet  come  to  this.  Loudly  and  violently 
as  the  whigs,  at  first,  complained  of  fraud,  Polk  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact  and  without  any  more  ado,  recognized  as  the 
legally  elected  president,  and  the  great  question  of  the  day 
which  was  still  waiting  a  solution,  soon  drove  the  memory 
of  the  wholesale  manufacture  of  votes  into  the  background. 
There  was  still  another  battle  to  be  fought,  and  the  Ameri- 
can is  too  much  of  a  man  of  action  to  waste  his  time  and 
his  strength  under  such  circumstances  in  useless  complaints. 
Another  and  a  very  diflerent  phase  of  the  electoral  pro- 
how  it  waa  obtained."  Sargent,  Public  Men  and  ETenta,  II,  p.  248. 
In  New  York,  the  Empire  Club,  led  by  Isaiah  Rhyndere,  distinguished 
itself  especially.  Sargent  says :  "  Famous  as  the  '  Plaquemine  frauds '  be- 
came, they  sank  into  insignificance  when  compared  with  those  perpetrated 
in  the  city  of  New  York."  Clingman.  of  North  Carolina,  declared  in  the 
house  of  representatives  that  in  the  county  of  St  Lawrence,  bordering  on 
Canada,  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  twenty-seven  votes  more  than  ever 
before  were  cast,  and  in  Georgia,  even  fifteen  thousand  nine  hundred  and 
forty-four  more  than  there  were  persons  with  the  right  of  suflfrage.  Public 
Men  and  Events,  pp.  255,  256. 


700   JACKSON-'S  ADMINISTKATION A2fNEXATI0N  OP  TEXAS. 

ceedings  made  the  deepest  and  most  lasting  impression;  and 
this  phase  of  those  proceedings  was,  by  far,  the  most  im- 
portant for  the  near  future.  Birnej,  the  candidate  of  the 
liberty  party,  had  received  sixty-four  thousand  six  hundred 
and  fifty-three  votes.^  This  number  was  still  evanescently 
small  in  comparison  with  the  vote  of  the  two  great  parties; 
and  yet  this  small  band  had  turned  the  scales.  The  liberty 
party  was  recruited  almost  exclusively  from  among  the 
whigs,  and  in  New  York  and  Michigan  their  vote  was  greater 
than  the  democratic  majority.  The  two  states  had  together 
forty-one  electoral  votes.  If  the  liberty  party  had  gone 
along  with  the  whigs.  Clay,  spite  of  all  the  election  frauds, 
would,  therefore,*liave  been  elected  by  a  majority  of  seventeen 
electoral  votes.*  Hence  a  great  part  of  the  whigs  were  far 
less  embittered  against  the  democratic  election-forgers  than 
against  the  "  fanatics  "  who  had  proved  untrue  to  their  old 
flag,  although  they  had  known  very  well  that  they,  in  this 
way,  might  facilitate  the  victory  of  the  common  enemy. 
But  this  embitterment  did  not  at  all  change  the  case,  and 
the  men  who  made  hobby-horses  of  their  principles  mani- 
fested no  regret,  in  any  way.  And  this  fact  was  still  more 
significant  than  the  immediate  result.  These  hobby-horse 
riders  were  the  little  needle  of  the  balance,  and  they  had 
afforded  actual  proof,  that,  on  the  basis  of  equal  convictions, 
in  reference  to  questions  of  a  second  order  and  of  a  lesser 

*  Statesm.'s  Man.,  II,  p.  1535.  Sargent,  II,  p.  251,  gives  sixty-two 
thousand  two  hundred  and  sixty-three. 

*  Even  New  York  alone,  with  its  thirty-six  votes,  would  have  been  suflS- 
cient  to  secure  his  election.  A.  Spencer  writes  to  Clay  on  the  21st  of 
November:  "  You  received  two  hundred  and  thirty- two  thousand  four 
hundred  and  eleven  votes;  Polk  received  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
thousand  four  hundred  and  thirty-two;  Bimey,  fifteen  thousand  eight  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five.  What  a  monstrous  poll !  You  received  six  thousand 
five  hundred  and  ninety-four  more  votes  than  Harrison  did  in  1840,  when 
his  majority  exceeded  thirteen  thousand.  You  will  perceive  that  the  abo- 
lition vote  lost  you  the  election,  as  three-fourths  of  them  were  firm  whigs, 
converted  into  abolitionists."    Clay,  Priv.  Corresp.,  pp.  501,  502. 


TYLEE   ON   ANNEXATION.  701 

degree  of  base  love  for  the  slavocracj,  their  assistance  could 
henceforth  not  be  expected.  True,  they  thus  played  into  the 
hands  of  the  annexationists,  and  made  annexation  possible. 
But  this  cannot  determine  history  to  adopt  the  damnatory 
judgment  of  the  day.  They  helped  to  turn  the  ship  towards 
its  horrible  end;  but  this  they  could  do,  or  lend  a  hand  to 
do,  only  to  perpetuate  the  incomparably  greater  endless  hor- 
ror. If  they  continued  their  course,  a  new  formation  of 
parties  was  inevitable;  and  the  whigs  had  to  pay  the  whole 
account  The  northern  portion  of  the  whigs  furnished  the 
reinforcements  to  the  party  of  the  future,  and  the  more  the 
ranks  of  the  latter  swelled,  the  gi-eater  must  have  been  the 
tendency  of  the  southern  portion  to  join  the  democratic 
party  which  was  ruled  by  the  slavocracy. 

The  annexationists  had,  thanks  to  the  liberty  party,  con- 
quered, but,  so  far  as  it  could  be  at  all  done  by  the  presiden- 
tial election,  the  proof  was  now  adduced  that  the  majority  of 
the  population  were  opposed  to  immediate  annexation.  The 
anti-anuexationist  vote  was  made  up  of  the  vote  of  the  whigs, 
that  of  the  liberty  party  and  that  of  the  democrats  who  would 
see  in  Polk  only  the  democrat  and  not  the  annexationist. 
These  three  groups  together  constituted  the  majority,  so  that 
there  was  no  need  first  to  deduct  the  illegal  votes  from  the 
vote  for  the  Polk  electors.  Tyler,  notwithstanding,  in  his 
annual  message  of  the  3d  of  December,  alleged  witii  the 
boldness  which  had  long  distinguished  the  slavocrat,  that 
annexation  was  the  only  question  which  had  been  before 
the  people  in  the  electoral  campaign,  and  that  the  majority 
not  only  of  the  states  but  of  the  population  also  had  decided 
in  favor  of  immediate  annexation.  Both  houses  of  con- 
gress, he  declared,  had  been  instructed,  in  "  terms  the  most 
emphatic,"  to  accomplish  annexation  immediately.  Heoce, 
it  was  proper  that  all  questions  of  secondary  consideration 
should  be  put  aside.     In  accordance  with  this,  he  recom* 


7C2  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

mended  in  express  terms   the   easiest  and  simplest  way: 
annexation  by  joint  resolution  of  both  houses.* 

This  far  surpassed  all  the  gratuitous  advice  to  which 
Jackson  had  ever  treated  the  "  people  "  as  to  the  "  decisions  " 
which  they  should  have  come  to.  How  wroth  Calhoun  had 
then  been  over  such  interpretations  of  the  elections!  But 
that  Tyler  did  not  now  write  a  word  on  this  question,  which 
did  not  have  the  sanction  of  his  secretary  of  state,  is  self- 
evident.  The  slavocracy  would  have  to  die,  and  to  die  be- 
yond resurrection,  if  it  could  not  devise  some  means  to  get 
more  land  and  to  create  more  states.  Ko  one  had  recoa:- 
nized  this  more  clearly  than  Calhoun.  What  wonder,  then, 
that  the  horrible  craving  for  land  which  devoured  the  entrails 

'  "  No  definite  action  having  been  taken  on  the  subject  [annexation]  by 
congress,  the  question  referred  itself  directly  to  the  decision  of  the  states 
and  the  people.  The  great  popular  election  which  has  just  terminated, 
afforded  the  best  opportunity  of  ascertaining  the  will  of  the  states  and 
the  people  upon  it.  .  .  .  The  decision  of  the  people  and  the  states,  on 
this  great  and  interesting  subject,  has  been  decisively  manifested.  The 
question  of  annexation  has  been  presented  nakedly  to  their  consideration. 
By  the  treaty  itself,  all  collateral  and  incidental  issues  which  were  cal- 
culated to  divide  and  distract  the  public  councils,  were  carefully  avoided. 
These  were  left  for  the  wisdom  of  the  future  to  determine.  It  presented,  I 
repeat,  the  isolated  question  of  annexation;  and  in  that  form  it  has  been 
submitted  to  the  ordeal  of  pubUc  sentiment.  A  controlling  majority  of 
the  people,  and  a  large  majority  of  the  states,  have  declared  in  favor  of 
immediate  annexation.  Instructions  have  thus  come  up  to  both  branches 
of  congress,  from  their  respective  constituents,  in  terms  the  most  emphatic. 
It  is  the  will  of  both  the  people  and  the  states  that  Texas  shall  be  annexed 
to  the  Union  promptly  and  immediately.  It  may  be  hoped  that,  in  carry- 
ing into  execution  the  public  will,  thus  declared,  all  collateral  issues  may 
be  avoided.  Future  legislatures  can  best  decide  as  to  the  number  of  states 
which  should  be  formed  out  of  the  territory,  when  the  time  has  ivrrived 
for  deciding  tliat  question.    So  with  aU  others.     .    .     . 

"The  two  governments  having  already  agreed,  through  their  respective 
organs,  on  the  terms  of  annexation,  I  would  recommend  their  adoption  by 
congress  in  the  form  of  a  joint  resolution,  or  act,  to  be  perfected  and  made 
binding  on  the  two  countries  when  adopted,  in  like  manner,  by  the  gov- 
ernment of  Texas."    Statesm.'8  Man.,  II,  pp.  1485,  1846. 


HODE  OF  ANNEXATION.  703 

of  the  slavocracj,  drove  the  greatest  of  the  slavocrats,  for  the 
sake  of  obtaining  this  land,  to  ignore  entirely,  and  without 
any  compunction,  all  the  underlying  principles  of  his  polit- 
ical doctrines.     It  was  a  qnestioi  often  raised,  but  never  yet 
decided,  whether  the  state  legislatures  had  a  right  to  instruct 
the  senators.     But  who  had  ever  heard  of  the  right  of  the 
people  to  give  instructions  to  the  senate,  by  means  of  a  gen- 
eral election?    When  had  the  powers  of  the  legislatures  been 
transferred  to  the  electors?    Even  the  most  decided  partisans 
of  the  right  of  instruction  of  the  legislatures  had,  for  the 
most  part,  left  the  senators  the  alternative  of  resignation. 
Now  it  was  claimed  that  the  instructions  given  by  the  pres- 
idential election  directed  the  senate  to  refrain,  on  principle, 
from  all  further  previous  consideration ;  all  it  had  to  do  was 
to  grasp  the  tempting  fruit,  and  leave  it  to  the  future  to  do 
the  best  it  could  with  the  numberless  poisonous  thorns  which 
cx)vered  it.     But  above  all,  what  became  of   the  "sover- 
eignty" of  the  states?    The  constitution  had  made  the  sen- 
ate of  congress,  in  the  first  place,  the  controlling  adviser  to 
the  president,  in  respect  to  the  relations  with  foreign  powers. 
Tlie  least  important  of  treaties  required  the  assent  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  senators.     And  now,  in  the  case  of  a  compact 
with  a  foreign  power,  than  which  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
one  more  important,  a  simple  majority  was  to  sufiice,  al- 
though, according  to  Tyler's  own  theory,  much  more  than 
one-third  of  the  states  had  "  instructed  "  their  senators,  in 
"  terms  the  most  emphatic,"  against  annexation ;  for  of  twen- 
ty-six states,  eleven  had  given  their  electoral  vote  for  Clay. 
If  the  "people,"  by  means  of  a  presidential  election,  could 
oblige  congress  to  incorporate  a  foreign  state,  and  if  congress 
could  effect  such  incorporation  by  a  simple  majority  reso- 
lution, the  "consolidation  "  of  the  Union  was  complete,  and 
its  confederate  character  completely  and  forever  at  an  end. 
The  Union  never  was  —  neither  actually  nor  legally  —  the 


704  Jackson's  administeation  — annexation  of  texas. 

confederation  of  sovereign  states  whicli  Calhoun  represented 
it  to  be;  but  neither  was  it  actually  or  legally  a  political  or 
national  monad  (Elnheitsstaat  =■  unity-state).  The  consti- 
tution of  "  this  Union  "  into  which  congress  might  take  new 
states,  may  be  likened  to  a  piece  of  tissue  — representing  the 
incomplete  growing  state  of  affairs  —  with  a  confederate 
warp  and  a  federal  woof.  If  Tyler's  proposition  was  acceded 
to,  this  Union  had  disappeared.  It  was  no  longer,  in  any 
sense,  a  constitutional  state,  if  the  federal  powers  could  thus 
be  given  binding  instructions  by  the  "people;"  and  still 
less,  if  possible,  if  the  federal  powers  were  entitled,  in  their 
own  right,  or  by  virtue  of  such  instructions,  to  evade  the 
most  unambiguous  provisions  of  the  constitution.  The  in- 
terpretation of  every  constitution  must  start  out  with  the 
two-fold  supposition,  that  every  one  of  its  pro^H[sions  has  a 
reasonable  purpose,  and  that  it  cannot  have  been  the  inten- 
tion of  the  legislator  that  one  part  of  its  provisions  should 
be  repealed  by  another  part.  But  the  provision  that  treaties 
should  be  concluded  by  the  president,  with  the  cooperation 
of  two-thirds  of  the  senators,  had  no  reasonable  purpose  if 
even  the  utmost  which  could  be  accomplished  by  the  treaty- 
power  could  be  effected  likewise  by  a  resolution  of  congress, 
in  the  most  informal  and  most  un-guarantied  {garantielo- 
sesten)  manner,  in  which  any  action  whatever  of  congress 
could  be  taken.  Moreover,  the  principle  whicli  had  to  be 
relied  on,  to  effect  annexation,  by  a  joint  resolution,  involved 
the  doing  away,  on  principle,  with  the  eminently  conserva- 
tive fundamental  character  of  the  constitution,  in  which  the 
federative  nature  of  the  Union  had  found  its  most  direct  and 
entirely  natural  expression.  All  the  guaranties  with  which 
the  separate  provisions  of  the  constitution  surrounded  the 
constitutive  members  of  the  Union  —  the  states  —  against 
too  hasty  changes  in  general,  and  especially  against  encroach- 
ments on  their  independent  powers,  and  permanent  curtail- 


Calhoun's  position.  T05 

raents  of  these  powers,  by  simple  majority  resolutions,  were 
-'mere  illusions,  if  a  majority-resolution  of  congress  sufficed 
?)  to  incorporate  foreign  states  into  the  Union.  The  an- 
nexationists laid  great  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  Texans 
were  children  of  the  Union,  and  had  modeled  all  their  in- 
stitutions on  those  of  the  United  States.  But  who  went  se- 
curity that  the  hands  of  the  annexationists  would  not  soon 
grasp  at  territory  which,  in  everything,  bore  a  heteroge- 
neous stamp?  Many  words  to  this  effect  had  already 
dropped  from  the  lips  of  the  slavocrats,  from  which  it 
ap})eared  that  such  would  be  the  case,  under  all  circum- 
stances, and  that  it  would  take  place  all  the  sooner  if  they 
acquired  Texas. 

Calhoun  believed  that  the  existence  of  the  slavocracy  was 
at  stake,  and  hence  he  put  the  constitution  aside,  and  threw 
it  overboard,  and  the  constitution,  not  only  as  he  had  hith- 
erto conceived  it,  but  as  it  really  was.  I  do  not  say  that  he 
was  clearly  conscious  of  this.  In  all  his  thought  and  feeling, 
he  was  so  entirely  a  slave  of  slavery,  that  he  was  not  able  to 
look  to  the  right  or  to  the  left,  so  long  as  that  conviction 
scourged  him  to  the  goal  on  which  his  eye  was  fastened  with 
all  the  violence  of  the  monomaniac.  Others,  on  the  con- 
trary, not  only  walked  right  over  the  constitution,  but,  with- 
out any  imaginable  practical  object  and  only  for  their  own 
pleasure,  ostentatiously  and  maliciously  trampled  it  under 
foot.  And  again,  the  slavocracy  was  able  to  boast  that  a 
volunteer  from  among  their  northern  soldier-boys  pushed 
himself  forward  to  perform  this  provost  service  (Profoas- 
dienst).  Tyler  had  said  that  congress  should  no  longer  occupy 
itself  with  the  question  concerning  the  conditions,  but  be 
content  with  what  had  been  agreed  upon  between  the  exec- 
utives of  the  two  states.  Charles  J.  Ingersoll,  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, the  chairman  of  the  house  committee  on  foreign 
affairs,  carried  out  this  wish  to  the  very  letter:  he  introduced 
45 


706  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

the  rejected  treaty  itself  as  an  annexation  resolution.^  In 
the  senate,  McDaflBe,  of  South  Carolina,  told,  with  laconic 
brevity,  what  this  meant.  According  to  his  motion,  the 
joint  resolution  should  "  ratify  the  treaty."  ^  These  were  the 
fanatics  of  "  strict  construction." 

The  gentlemen  were,  therefore,  after  all,  mistaken.  If 
there  was  in  congress  a  respectable  number  of  representa- 
tives of  the  northern  states  who  boasted  the  honor  of  consid- 
ering it  their  duty  to  perform  the  meanest  service  for  the 
slavocracy,  there  were,  on  the  other  hand,  among  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  southern  states,  still  many  patriots  and  men 
of  honor,  whose  cheeks  were  mantled  with  shame  and  whose 
hearts  beat  with  indignation  at  the  brazen  insinuation  that 
they  could  thus  foolishly  play  with  the  constitution. 

The  battle  was  fought  along  two  entirely  different  lines. 
The  one  part  contested,  unconditionally,  the  right  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Union  to  annex  a  foreign  state,  and  did  not 
want,  under  any  circumstances,  to  allow  the  territory  of 
slavery  to  be  extended.  In  relation  to  the  first  point,  the 
struggle  over  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  was  not  renewed. 
That  precedent  was,  for  the  most  part,  looked  upon  as  bind- 
ing, and  where  this  was  not  done,  the  question  was  left 
entirely  undecided.  The  stress  was  laid  on  the  fact  that  a 
piece  of  land  was  not  to  be  acquired  from  a  foreign  state, 
but  that  an  entire  foreign  state  was  to  be  incorporated  into 
the  Union. 

'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  pp.  174, 175. 

'"Resolved, by  the  senate  and  hoase  of  representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  congress  assembled.  That  the  compact  of  annexation 
made  between  the  executive  government  of  the  United  States  and  that  of 
Texas,  and  submitted  to  the  senate  for  confirmation  by  the  president  of  the 
United  States,  be  and  the  same  is  hereby  ratified  as  the  fundamental  law 
of  nnion  between  the  United  States  and  Texas,  as  soon  as  the  supreme  ex- 
ecutive and  legislative  power  of  Texas  shall  ratify  and  confirm  the  said 
compact  of  annexation."    Niks,  LXVI,  p.  422. 


POWER  TO  ANKEX.  FOBEIGN  STATES.'  707 

The  aDiiexationists  maintained  that  the  constitution  gave  to 
congress,  in  general,  authority  to  "  adopt  new  states."  They 
believed  they  found  a  point  of  support  for  their  view,  in  the 
fact  that,  at  first,  the  following  restriction  was  added  to  the 
clause:  "  lawfully  arising  within  the  limits  of  the  United 
States."^  Rives,  of  Virginia,  on  the  other  hand,  claimed 
that  the  Philadelphia  convention  had  dropped  this  restriction 
only  from  regard  to  Vermont,  which  was  at  the  time,  in  a 
certain  measui-e,  engaged  in  rebellion  against  New  York, 
and  which  might,  therefore,  easily  have  been  regarded  as  a 
state  not  "  lawfully  "  arising.  McDuffie  replied  that,  to  re- 
move this  diflBculty,  there  was  no  need  of  striking  out  the 
whole  limitation;  it  would  have  been  sufficient  to  drop  the 
woi*d  "  lawfully." '  Undoubtedly  correct  as  this  argument 
is  in  itself,  I  cannot  bnt  think  that  Rives's  view  accorded  with 
the  historical  fact.  It  did -not  at  all  occur  to  the  convention, 
that  the  question  whether  states  originating  outside  the  terri- 
tory of  the  Union  should  be  admitted,  could  arise.  I  con- 
sider  the  words,  "  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States," 
only  an  additional  clause  added  to  the  words  "  states  law- 
fully arising"  out  of  stylistic  considerations.  "With  the  lat- 
ter the  former,  obviously,  fell  away.  There  is  not  to  be 
found,  in  Madison's  notes,  the  least  intimation  that  a  single 
member  of  the  convention  had  referred  to  the  possibility 
pointed  out  by  McDuffie.  But  it  may,  indeed,  be  seen  from 
them,  that  regard  for  the  case  of  Vermont  played  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  history  of  that  clause.  On  the  29th  of 
August,  Gouverneur  Morris  introduced  the  motion  which 
led  to  its  later  framing.  The  original  limitation  was 
stricken  out,  but  the  creation  of  new  states  within  the  limits 
of  the  existing  states  was  made  to  depend  on  the  assent  of 
the  legislatures  of  the  states  in  question  and  of  congress. 

« ElUot,  Debates,  V,  pp.  128,  157,  190,  211,  376,  381. 
•Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  232. 


708  Jackson's  administration  —  annexation  of  texas. 

Luther  Martin  expressed  himself  in  opposition  to  this,  and 
asked  whether  it  was  desired  to  reduce  Yermont  bj  force.^ 
Morris's  motion  and  the  final  framing  of  the  clause  were  a 
compromise:  the  convention  avoided  giving,  in  the  consti- 
tution, a  direct  point  of  support  for  the  raising  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  such  events  as  were  taking  place  in  Yermont 
were  unlawful,  and  at  the  same  time  saved  their  rights  to 
the  existing  states. 

The  expression  "  new  states,"  also  affords  an  argument  in 
favor  of  this  interpretation.  If  it  cannot  be  claimed  that 
the  expression  is  applicable  only  to  states  which  originate 
within  the  territory  of  the  Union,  yet  it  will  not  be  ques- 
tioned that  the  word  "  new  "  was  not  the  most  direct  and 
proper,  if  the  Philadelphia  convention  had  had  foi;eign 
states  in  mind  also.  Considering  the  great  care  it  took, 
throughout,  in  its  redaction,  we-  are  justified  in  assuming 
that  it  would  have  used  a  second  adjective,  in  this  case,  to 
designate  both  categories  exactly.  That  it  had  only  the 
former  category  in  mind,  is  all  the  more  probable,  because 
the  two  restrictions  pertaining  to  the  granting  of  the  right 
of  admission,  speak  only  of  the  territory  of  the  Union.' 
Madison,  indeed,  speaks  once  in  the  Federalist  of  the  ad- 
mission of  new  states  in  "  their  [the  thirteen  original]  neigh- 
borhoods;" but  the  context  does  not  permit  the  slightest 

•"Nothing  .  .  .  would  80  alarm  the  limited  states  as  to  make  the 
consent  of  the  lai-ge  states,  claiming  the  western  lands,  necessary  to  the 
establishments  within  their  limits.  It  is  proposed  to  guaranty  the  states. 
Shall  Vermont  be  reduced  by  force,  in  favor  of  the  states  claiming  it? 
Frankland,  and  the  western  county  of  Virginia,  were  in  a  like  situation." 
Elliot,  Debates,  V,  p.  493. 

*  See  the  speech  of  Bagby,  of  Alabama,'  Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  pp.  220, 
221.  The  clause  reads:  "New  states  may  be  admitted  by  tiie  con- 
gress into  this  Union,  but  no  new  state  shall  be  formed  or  erected  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  any  other  state;  nor  any  state  be  formed  by  the  junc- 
tion of  two  or  more  states,  or  parts  of  states,  without  the  consent  of  the 
legislatures  of  the  states  concerned,  as  well  as  of  the  congress." 


coNsnTunoNALrrr  of  aunexation.  709 

doubt,  that  by  "  neighborhoods  "  he  understood  the  territory 
belonging  to  the  states  which  lay  outside  their  limits  as  ac- 
tually organized  states.* 

The  law  was  against  the  annexationists,  but  the  facta  were 
on  their  side.  Congress  had  not  been  granted  the  power  to 
incorporate  foreign  states  into  the  Union ;  but  there  was  no 
essential  difference  between  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  the 
annexation  of  Texas.  If  the  slavery  question  and  the  rela- 
tion to  Mexico  were  left  out  of  consideration,  there  was  all 
the  less  reason  to  hesitate  about  the  latter;  since  Texas  did 
not  need  first  to  assimilate  itself  to  the  United  States  in  any 
essential  respect  Had  it  belonged  to  the  United  States, 
from  the  first,  and  without  interruption,  it  would  not  have 
been  by  one  iota  a  more  homogeneous  element.  But  such 
facts  weigh  more  in  the  life  of  nations  than  abstract  right 
The  want  of  constitutional  power  furnished  a  solid  basis  for 
the  other  reasons  of  the  opposition ;  but  if  these  did  not 
avail,  from  want  of  suflBcient  force,  it  was  folly  to  expect 
that  the  former  would  be  looked  upon  as  an  insurmountable 
obstacle. 

Tyler  would  scarcely  have  assumed  so  bold  an  attitude,  in 

'  He  endeavors  to  refate  the  assertion  that  republics  of  great  extent  as 
to  space  are  a  nonentity;  specifies  the  extent  of  the  territoiy  of  the  Union 
according  to  the  limits  established  in  the  conclusion  of  peace  with  Eng- 
land ;  declares  "  the  natural  limit  of  a  republic  is  that  distance  from  the 
centre  which  will  barely  allow  the  representatives  of  the  people  to  meet  as 
often  as  may  be  necessary  for  the  administration  of  public  affairs.  Can  it 
be  said  that  the  limits  of  the  United  States  exceed  this  distance?  "  And 
then  says:  "  A  second  observation  to  be  made  is,  that  the  immediate  ob- 
jects of  the  foederal  constitution  is  to  secure  the  union  of  the  thirteen  prim- 
itive states,  which  we  know  to  be  practicable;  and  to  add  to  them  such 
other  states  as  may  arise  in  their  own  bosoms,  or  in  their  neighborhoods, 
which  we  cannot  doubt  to  be  equally  practicable.'*  The  Federalist,  No. 
XIV,  Dawson's  edit,  pp.  85,  87.  Hence  these  amplifications  only  con- 
firm the  view  of  the  anti-annexationists.  See  also  Crittenden*!  Speech, 
Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  223. 


710  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

his  annual  message,  if  he  had  not  known  that  he  was  in  ac- 
cord, on  the  fundamental  question,  with  the  majority  in  both 
houses  of  congress.  If  only  all  those  who  knew  how  to 
come  to  an  understanding  in  the  one  way  or  the  other  on 
the  constitutional  question  in  relation  to  the  how  of  annexa- 
tion could  be  brought  together,  the  game  was  won. 

In  the  house,  there  was  need  of  only  one  cardinal  con- 
cession: that  the  line  of  the  Missouri  compromise  should  be 
continued  through  Texas.  Regard  had  to  subsequent  events, 
special  attention  should  be  called  to  the  fact  that  Douglats, 
of  Illinois,  not  only  adopted  this  provision  into  the  resolutions 
introduced  by  himself,^  but  that  he  also  afterwards  desired 
the  amendment  of  the  resolutions  of  Milton  Brown,  of  Ten- 
nessee, by  the  express  prohibition  of  slavery  north  of 
Se*'  30'.*  When  this  was  accorded,  the  resolutions  were 
adopted  on  the  25th  of  February  by  a  vote  of  one  hundred 
and  twenty  against  ninety-eight.' 

In  the  senate,  the  battle  raged  hotter  and  lasted  longer; 
for  the  senate  contended  not  only  for  the  constitution  in  gen- 
eral, but  for  its  own  prerogatives  also.  Archer,  of  Yirginia, 
made  a  report  on  the  4th  of  February,  1845,  which  very 
emphatically  declared  annexation  to  be  possible  only  by  means 
of  the  treaty,  and  which,  moreover,  demanded  the  resolution 
of  Texas  "  into  its  component  elements."  *    Benton  again  dis- 

>Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  pp.  170,  171. 

*Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  196. 

•Ibid.,  p.  197. 

♦  "  All  views  unite  in  the  conclusion  that  foreign  population,  like  exte- 
rior territory,  can  have  passage  into  the  Union  only  by  the  exercise  of  the 
treaty-making  function  in  the  government;  and  that  function  is  not  in 
congress.  There  is  no  contrivance  to  elude  the  resort,  nor  reasoning  which 
may  impugn  the  conclusion.  .  .  .  The  only  mode  of  effectuation  of 
the  admission  of  Texas  lawfully  .  .  .  is  by  the  resolution  of  the  pres- 
ent state  of  Texas  into  its  component  elements  of  population  and  territory, 
which  may  in  those  forms  pass  through  the  ordeal  sieve  of  the  treaty- mak« 


Benton's  coubse.  711 

tinguished  himself  by  the  weighty  self-certaintj  and  the  in- 
cisive dialectics  with  which  he  defended  this  view.  The 
session  as  well  as  Tyler's  presidency  were  rapidly  drawing 
to  a  close,  and  the  left  wing  of  the  annexationists  was  forced 
to  abandon  the  hope  to  cajole  and  force  the  majority  of  the 
senate  in  the  summary  manner  proposed  by  the  president 
Then  it  was  that  Walker,  of  Mississippi,  hit  upon  an  expe- 
dient He  moved  an  amendment  to  the  resolution  of  the 
house,  in  accordance  with  which  the  president  might,  under 
certain  conditions,  conclude  a  treaty  of  annexation,  if  such  a 
course  should  seem  to  him  better  than  to  submit  the  pend- 
ing resolution  to  Texas.^  A  part  of  the  opposition  greedily 
grasped  at  the  sop;  and  Benton  first  of  all.  Miller,  of  New 
Jersey,  moved  as  an  amendment  the  bill  which  Benton  had 
brought  in  on  the  11th  of  December,  1844.*  The  Mis- 
sourian,  true  to  his  principles,  announced  that  he  would  vote 
against  the  amendment.  To  the  question  whether  he  wished 
to  kill  his  own  child,  he  replied:  "  I'll  kill  it  stone  dead."" 
He  was  repaid  with  laughter  and  applause  for  this  heroic 
and  patriotic  resolution.  There  was,  indeed,  room  for 
laughter  if  one  were  not  able  to  understand  what  just  ground 
there  was  to  weep.  Benton  and  those  who  with  him  were 
caught  in  Walker's  snare,  had  repeatedly,  and  with  the 
greatest  emphasis,  declared  that  the  only  constitutional  way 
to  annexation  was  a  treaty.  They  now,  accordingly,  in  a 
formal  manner,  authorized  the  president  to  decide  as  he 

intr  power  under  the  oonatitation."  Sen.  Doc,  28th  Congr.,  2d  8em. 
1844-45,  Vol.  Ill,  No.  79.  pp.  13,  20. 

'  "  That  if  the  president  of  the  United  States  shall,  in  his  judgment  and 
discretion,  deem  it  more  advisable,  instead  of  proceeding  to  submit  the 
foregoing  resolution  to  the  republic  of  Texas  as  an  overture  on  the  part  of 
the  United  States  for  admission,  to  negotiate  with  that  republic,  then,"  etc. 
Deb.  of  Congr.,  XV,  p.  226. 

•Ibid.,  p.  165. 

» Ibid.,  p.  229. 


712  Jackson's  administeation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

thought  best,  whether  the  constitution  should  be  maintained 
intact  or  whether  it  should  be  trampled  under  foot. 

The  resolution  of  the  house  with  "Walker's  amendment  was 
adopted  by  a  vote  of  twenty-seven  against  twenty-five,  and  on 
the  28th  of  February  the  house  concurred  in  it  by  a  vote  of  one 
hundred  and  thirty-two  against  seventy-six.^ 

The  renegades  in  both  houses  of  congress  declared  later,  that 
they  would  never  have  meddled  with  the  compromise  if  Mc- 
Duffie  had  not  declared,  in  the  senate,  that  Calhoun  would  not 
have  the  "  audacity  "  to  invite  Texas  to  hurried  action,  on  the 
ground  of  the  resolution  of  the  house,  and  if  Polk  had  not  given 
his  promise  to  act  in  the  sense  of  the  Walker  amendment.^ 
The  joint  resolution  received  the  president's  signature  on  the 
Ist  of  Marcli.^  The  cabinet  concurred  in  it,  and  Callioun  wrote 
his  dispatch  to  the  minister  in  Texas  the  same  night.  Late  on 
the  evening  of  the  3d  of  March  —  Tyler's  presidential  term 
had  not  many  hours  to  last — Texas  received  the  invitation  to 
make  use  of  the  broad  flight  of  steps  of  the  resolution  of 
the  house  as  an  ascent  to  the  temple  of  the  Union.*  Calhoun, 
in  his  instruction  to  Donelson,  laid  stress  on  it  —  and  re- 
peated the  declaration  in  a  speech  of  the  24th  of  February, 
1847,  in  the  senate  —  that  he  had  taken  this  step  because  he 
was  convinced  that  even  now  no  annexation  treaty  would 
have  received  the  assent  of  the  senate.'    The  bridal  dress  in 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  229,  231. 

•Thirty  Years'  View,  II,  pp.  636,  637. 

•Stat,  at  L.,  V,  p.  797. 

*  "  I  saw  the  importance  of  acting  promptly,  and  advised  the  president 
to  act  without  delay;  that  he  had  the  constitutional  right  of  doing  so,  and 
that  I  deemed  it  necessary  that  he  should  act,  in  order  effectually  to  secure 
the  success  of  a  measure  which  had  originated  with  his  administration. 
His  cabinet  were  summoned  the  next  day,  and  concurred  in  the  opinion. 
That  night  I  prepared  the  dispatch  for  Mr.  Donelson,  our  charge  in  Texas, 
and  the  next  day,  late  in  the  evening  of  the  3d  of  March,  it  was  forwarded 
to  him."    Calh.'8  Works,  IV,  p.  363. 

*  "  The  president  has  deliberately  considered  the  subject,  and  is  of  opinion 


CHAmONG's   PKOPHEOT.  713 

which  Calhoan  had  led  the  beloved  of  the  slavocracy  to  the 
Union  was  the  torn  and  tattered  constitation  of  the  United 
States. 

As  far  back  as  eight  years  previous  to  this,  Dr.  Channing 
had  written:  "By  this  act  our  country  will  enter  on  a  career 
of  encroachmeAt  and  crime,  and  will  merit  the  punishment 

that  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  enter  into  the  negotiations  authorized  by 
the  amendment  of  the  senate;  and  yon  are,  accordingly,  instructed  to  pre- 
sent to  the  government  of  Texas,  as  the  basis  of  its  admission,  the  pro- 
posals contained  in  the  resolution  as  it  came  from  the  house  of  representa- 
tives. It  is  not  deemed  necessary  to  state  at  large  the  grounds  on  which 
the  decision  rests.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  state  briefly  that  the  provisions 
of  the  resolution,  as  it  came  from  tiie  house,  are  more  simple  in  their  char- 
acter —  may  be  more  readily  and  with  less  difficulty  and  expense  carried 
into  effect;  and  that  the  great  object  contemplated  by  them  is  much  less 
exposed  to  the  hazard  of  ultimate  defeat.  .  .  .  But  the  decisive  ob- 
jection to  the  amendment  of  the  senate  is,  that  it  would  endanger  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  measure.  It  proposes  to  fix,  by  negotiation  between 
the  governments  of  the  United  States  and  Texas,  the  terms  and  conditions 
on  which  the  state  shall  be  admitted  into  our  Union,  and  the  cession  of  the 
remaining  territory  to  the  United  States.  Now  by  whatever  name  the 
agents  conducting  the  negotiation  may  beknovm  —  whether  they  be  called 
commissioners,  ministers,  or  by  any  other  title  —  the  compact  agreed  on 
by  them,  in  behalf  of  their  respective  governments,  would  be  a  beaty, 
whether  so  called  or  designated  by  some  other  name.  The  very  meaning 
of  a  treaty  is,  a  compact  between  independent  states,  founded  on  negoti- 
ation. And  if  a  treaty  (as  it  clearly  would  be),  it  must  be  submitted  to 
the  senate  for  its  approval,  and  run  the  hazard  of  receiving  the  votes  of 
two-thirds  of  the  members  present;  which  could  hardly  be  expected  if  we 
are  to  judge  from  recent  experience.  This,  of  itself,  is  considered  by  the 
president  as  a  conclusive  reason  for  proposing  the  resolution  of  the  house 
instead  of  the  amendment  of  the  senate  as  the  basis  of  annexation." 
Calh.'s  Works,  V,  pp.  393-395.  "  I  selected  the  resolution  of  the  house 
in  preference  to  the  amendment  of  which  the  senator  from  Missouri  was 
the  author— [in  so  far  as  the  object  of  Walker's  amendment  was  to  fulfill 
as  far  as  possible  the  wishes  of  Benton]—  because  I  clearly  saw,  not  only 
that  it  was  every  way  preferable,  but  the  only  certain  mode  by  which  an- 
nexation could  be  effected.  .  .  .  That  the  course  I  adopted  did  secure 
the  annexation,  and  that  it  was  indispensable  for  that  purpose,  I  have 
high  authority  in  my  possession."    Calh.'s  Works,  IV,  pp.  368,  364. 


714:  Jackson's  administbation  —  annexation  of  texas. 

and  woe  of  aggravated  wrong-doing.  The  seizure  of  Texaa 
will  not  stand  alone.  It  will  be  linked  by  an  iron  necessity 
to  long  continued  deeds  of  rapine  and  blood.  Ages  may  not 
see  the  catastrophe  of  the  tragedy,  the  first  scene  of  which 
we  are  so  ready  to  enact.  Texas  is  a  country  conquered  by 
our  citizens,  and  the  annexation  of  it  to  our  Union  will 
be  but  the  beginning  of  conquests,  which,  unless  arrested 
and  beaten  back  by  Providence,  will  stop  only  at  the  Isthmus 
of  Darien.  Henceforth  we  must  cease  to  cry,  peace!  peace! 
Our  eagle  will  whet,  not  gorge,  his  appetite  on  his  first  vie- 
tim,  and  will  snuff  a  more  tempting  quarry,  more  alluring 
blood,  in  every  new  region  which  opens  southward."  ^ 

The  eagle  grew  tired  of  playing  the  vulture,  and  learned 
to  become  ashamed  of  that  role,  but  Texas  became  the  Nes- 
SU8  robe  of  the  slavocracy.' 

'  .Jay,  Review  of  Mexican  War,  p.  106. 

'  Adams  in  his  grief  supported  himself  with  the  foreboding  hope  that  this 
might  happen.  When  the  news  that  Texas  had  accepted  the  conditions  of 
annexation  came,  he  wrote  in  his  diary :  "If  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
voice  of  God,  this  measure  has  now  the  sanction  of  Almighty  God.  .  ,  . 
Victrix  causa  Deo  placuit.  The  sequel  is  in  the  hands  of  Providence,  and 
the  ultimate  result  may  signally  disappoint  those  by  whom  this  enterprise 
has  been  consummated."    Mem  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  XII,  p.  202. 


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